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Social  Sciences  &  Humanities  Library 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 
Please  Note:  This  item  is  subject  to  recall. 

Date  Due 


MAY  1  5  1997 


2  3  1996 


Cl  39  (2/95) 


UCSD  Li). 


LITERARY    AND    HISTORICAL 


MISCELLANIES. 


BY 


GEORGE     BANCROFT 


NEW  YORK: 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS, 

FRANKLIN    SQUAEE. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1855, 

BY  GEORGE  BANCROFT, 

in  the  Clerk's'Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern 
District  of  New  York. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

ESSAYS : 

I.    THE  DOCTRINE  OF   TEMPERAMENTS,  1824,       -       -  1 

IT.    ENNUI,  1830,         ----------  44 

III.    THE  RULING  PASSION  IN   DEATH,   1833,     -       -       -  75 

STUDIES  IK  GERMAN   LITERATURE,  1824  AND  FOL 
LOWING  YEARS : 

I.    GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS,  ------  103 

II.    THE  REVIVAL  OF  GERMAN   LITERATURE,       -       -  124 

III.  MEN  OF  SCIENCE  AND   LEARNING,       -       -       -       -  152 

IV.  THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE,       -       -       -  167 
V.    TRANSLATIONS,  1818— 1824,        ------  206 

STUDIES  IN  HISTORY : 

I.    ECONOMY  OF  ATHENS,  1831,       ------  247 

II.    DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE,  1834,    -       -       -  280 

III.  RUSSIA,    1829,       ----------  318 

IV.  THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND    TURKEY,   1829,  -       -  334 


IV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES : 

I.    A  WORD  ON  CALVIN  THE  REFORMER,  OCT.  1834,       405 
II.    THE  OFFICE  OF    THE   PEOPLE  IN  ART,  GOVERN 
MENT  AND  RELIGION,  1835,          -----      4Q8 

III.  IN  MEMORY  OF  WM.  ELLERY  CHANNING,  1842,   -       436 

IV.  ORATION    COMMEMORATIVE  OF    ANDREW    JACK 

SON,  1845,       ----------     444 

V.  THE  NECESSITY.  THE  REALITY,  AND  THE  PRO 
MISE  OF  THE  PROGRESS  OF  THE  HUMAN 
RACE,  1854,  ----------  481 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  TEMPERAMENTS. 

THE    FIVE    SOURCES    OF   DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN    MEN. 

THE  connexion  between  the  mind  and  the  body  can 
never  be  explained.  As  yet,  the  first  principles  on 
which  it  depends,  have  not  been  discovered.  Nature, 
in  her  mysterious  operations,  eludes  the  sagacity  of  the 
most  careful  observers.  Her  venerable  form  is  con 
cealed  by  a  veil,  which  no  mortal  has  been  permitted  to 
raise.  The  first  cause  is  "  that  which  hath  been,  which 
is,  and  which  shall  be,  and  which  no  man  has  compre 
hended."  But  we  can  notice  the  relation  between  one 
set  of  appearances  and  another,  and  may  hope  to  be 
benefited  by  practical  inductions  from  our  observations. 
By  them  we  are  led  to  regard  the  body,  not  merely  as 
the  temporary  abode  of  the  soul,  but  also  as  the  instru 
ment  by  which  knowledge  is  acquired  and  purposes 
executed.  No  idea  of  the  external  world  finds  its  way 
to  the  mind  but  through  the  senses ;  while  the  action 
of  the  internal  organs  excites  the  passions,  modifies  the 
operations  of  thought,  and  imparts  peculiarities  to  the 
moral  nature. 
1 


2  THE    DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS. 

The  union  and  reciprocal  influence  of  the  mind 
and  body  are  established  before  the  period  for  observa 
tion  has  arrived.  If  the  reasonings  of  physiologists  are 
just,  the  infant  at  its  birth  is  already  possessed  of  a  con 
sciousness  of  its  being.  It  has  its  passions,  its  desires, 
its  propensities ;  and  not  only  its  physical  organization 
is  decided,  but  also  the  complexion  of  its  character. 
There  remains  room  for  education  to  accomplish  her 
high  designs  in  developing  its  powers,  in  confirm 
ing  its  advantages,  in  counteracting  its  faults,  in  sup 
plying  its  deficiencies,  in  tempering  its  elements.  But 
there  are  certain  limits,  within  which  this  influence  of 
art  is  restrained.  The  features  of  the  mind,  as  of  the 
face,  are  fixed  beyond  the  possibility  of  change.  Free 
opportunity  is  left  for  the  culture  of  morals ;  but  it  is 
also  decided,  by  what  vices  the  child,  on  ripening  to 
manhood,  will  be  most  liable  to  be  assailed,  and  in 
what  virtues  he  is  constitutionally  fitted  to  excel. 

The  native  peculiarities  of  individuals  may  be  illus 
trated  by  enumerating  those  which  experience  has 
shown  to  exist.  Sex  renders  a  diversity  of  moral  char 
acter  inevitable.  But  not  to  dwell  on  this  universal 
division,  there  may  clearly  be  observed  in  every  one  at 
least  five  sources  of  difference,  residing  in  his  original 
organization. 

The  human  family,  which  now  occupies  the  earth, 
is  composed  of  several  races.  Some  illustrious  physi 
ologists  have,  it  is  true,  contended  that  strictly  speaking 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  6 

there  is  but  one ;  and  that  men,  descended  from  com 
mon  parents,  have  been  variously  changed  by  the  con 
tinued  influence  of  climate  and  regimen.  But  while 
speculative  science  leads  to  the  belief  in  a  common 
origin,  and  establishes  beyond  a  doubt  the  unity  of  our 
kind,  the  difference  at  present  actually  exists ;  and  the 
child  inherits  the  physical  and  moral  characteristics  of 
the  race  to  which  it  belongs.  The  Englishman  and 
the  Hindoo,  though  natives  of  the  same  city,  are  from 
birth  unlike  in  mind  and  in  feature. 

The  same  race  has  been  variously  modified  in 
different  ages  of  the  world.  The  Greek  of  the  Byzan 
tine  Empire  was  not  as  the  Greek  of  the  Athenian 
democracy.  The  Roman  of  to-day  is  not  the  Roman 
of  the  Commonwealth.  A  German  baron  of  the  pres 
ent  time  is  all  unlike  the  feudal  robber  of  the  middle 
ages.  Each  generation  bears  marks  by  which  it  may 
be  distinguished  from  any  former  one.  These  differ 
ences,  though  they  are  the  result  of  the  state  of  society 
in  its  influence  on  the  individuals  who  compose  it,  are 
nevertheless  in  some  measure  hereditary ;  so  that  the 
new-born  child  is  affected  by  the  age  in  which  its  ex- 

t/  O 

istence  commences.  This  is  confirmed  by  analogies, 
drawn  from  the  whole  animal  creation. 

Nations,  also,  have  their  characteristics,  which  are 
transmitted  from  one  generation  to  another.  The  infant, 
therefore,  receives  with  its  original  frame  the  peculiarities 
of  its  nation.  To  what  degree  this  modification  of  char- 


4  THE    DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS. 

acter  extends,  it  is  difficult  to  determine.  It  probably 
reaches  further  than  we  may,  at  first  thought,  be  ready 
to  believe,  and  not  only  inclines  the  mind  to  certain 
habits  and  particular  sentiments,  to  such  virtues  as 
valor  and  prudence,  but  also  to  such  vices  as  rapacity 
and  cruelty,  to  cunning,  to  effeminacy,  to  superstition, 
to  servile  obedience.  It  gives  an  aptitude  for  acqui 
escing  in  certain  forms  of  society  and  government,  and 
a  facility  for  the  acquisition  and  use  of  a  particular  lan 
guage.  The  Frenchman  is  born  with  a  natural  predis 
position  to  cheerfulness ;  the  American  Indian  with  an 
innate  passion  for  the  chase ;  the  Arab  of  the  desert 
with  a  propensity  to  plunder.  Who  will  hesitate  to 
ascribe  the  bravery  of  the  Cossacks  to  a  peculiarity 
common  to  their  nation,  and  continued  by  descent? 
Who  will  doubt,  that  there  are  tribes  of  men  naturally 
unwarlike  ?  Is  it  not  to  be  believed,  that  the  physical 
organization  of  many  a  Tartar  tribe  inclines  them  to  a 
wandering  life  ?  Could  any  possible  education  make 
of  the  next  generation  of  the  serfs  in  Russia  good 
citizens  of  a  free,  popular  government  ?  Animals  often 
show  peculiar  skill  in  matters,  to  which  not  they,  but 
then1  parents,  have  been  trained.  The  books  of  the 
naturalists  furnish  well-attested  examples  of  qualities 
thus  inherited.  In  like  manner  we  may  believe,  that 
the  ancient  adorers  of  leeks  and  onions,  or  the  present 
worshippers  of  the  Grand  Lama,  came  into  the  world 
predisposed  to  superstition ;  that  the  Turk  is  naturally 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  5 

given  to  stern  composure  and  faith  in  the  power  of 
destiny ;  that  the  Siamese  commoner  does,  as  it  were, 
of  himself  cringe  and  fall  on  his  knees  before  the 
absurd  nobility  of  his  country;  and  that  the  de 
scendant  of  the  Pilgrims,  whether  on  the  banks  of 
the  Detroit,  the  Iowa,  or  the  Oregon,  has  the  true 
instinct  for  liberty.  As  to  speech,  the  infant  in  the  val 
ley  of  the  Euphrates  inherits,  it  may  not  be  doubted, 
an  aptness  to  learn  the  diffuse  forms  of  its  Oriental 
language ;  and  on  the  borders  of  the  Seine  to  prefer 
the  dialect  of  Paris  to  the  deeper  accents  of  the 
Germans.  Though  a  man  may  have  acquired  a  foreign 
language  in  his  infancy,  his  thoughts  were  not  des 
tined  by  nature  to  flow  in  it ;  and  perfect  success  in 
the  use  of  wTords  is  obtained  only  in  the  mother 
tongue. 

The  differences  in  national  character  are  obvious, 
when  we  hold  up  in  contrast  the  manners  and  history 
of  nations.  It  is  still  easier  to  observe  the  traits  which 
mark  families.  The  father's  lineaments  and  consti 
tution,  the  mother's  temper,  re-appear  in  their  off 
spring.  The  child  bears  the  features  of  its  parents, 
and  how  often  is  the  analogous  resemblance  of  mind  and 
tastes  perceptible. 

And  lastly,  the  life  of  every  person  has,  from  its 
commencement,  its  own  peculiarities.  From  the  first 
dawn  of  consciousness  it  is  distinguished  from  that  of 
every  other  intelligent  being;  and  it  contains  within 


6  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

itself,  the  principles  which  are  to  decide  on  character, 
condition,  and  happiness. 

It  appears  then,  from  its  race,  its  age,  its  nation,  its 
family,  and  its  own  organization,  the  infant  receives 
with  its  existence  peculiar  qualities.  If  it  be  asked, 
in  what  these  original  differences  consist,  we  might 
safely  invite  the  reader  to  consider  for  himself  each 
class,  under  which  we  have  arranged  them,  and  test  our 
statement  by  its  application  to  individual  cases.  This 
would  be  attended  with  no  difficulty  as  far  as  regards 
the  three  first  sources  of  difference.  Where  men  are 
to  be  judged  of  by  comparing  them  in  masses,  whether 
of  races  or  of  peoples,  and  centuries  of  national  existence 
are  to  be  grouped  together  for  the  convenience  of 
observing,  it  may  be  easy  to  seize  on  characteristics 
which  stand  out  in  bold  relief.  But  it  is  in  the  daily 
walks  of  life,  that  a  proper  discrimination  becomes  both 
difficult  and  invaluable.  It  is  in  comparing  family  with 
family,  and  man  with  man,  that  an  almost  endless  variety 
seems  to  baffle  every  effort  at  classification. 

But  the  subject  has  been  happily  reduced  to  order. 
It  is  found  possible  to  analyze  the  ingredients,  which 
compose  the  physical,  and  influence  the  moral  nature ; 
and  thus  to  arrive  at  comparatively  a  small  number 
of  elements,  which,  by  their  various  combinations, 
produce  the  infinite  diversity  existing  between  indi 
viduals.  The  ancients  already  established  the  simple 
classification  of  men  according  to  their  organization, 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  TEMPERAMENTS.        7 

and  with  the  happy  sagacity,  for  which  they  are  justly 
considered  eminent,  invented  the  DOCTRINE  or  TEMPER 
AMENTS  ;  a  doctrine,  in  itself  neither  unimportant  nor 
uninteresting ;  of  high  moment  to  the  physician  in  the 
treatment  of  disease,  and  not  without  its  advantages  to 
any  one  in  the  care  of  his  health ;  a  doctrine  which 
holds  a  conspicuous  place  in  physiological  science ;  and 
forms  a  fit  object  of  liberal  curiosity,  as  belonging  in 
general  to  the  history  and  knowledge  of  man. 

It  is  our  purpose  to  expound  this  intricate  sub 
ject.  Every  one  who  reads,  may  try  the  correctness 
of  our  views,  by  comparisons  drawn  from  his  own 
experience.  Yet  the  observer  will  bear  in  mind, 
that  the  theory  has  to  exhibit  each  temperament  in 
its  purity,  unmixed  and  unmitigated;  life  generally 
furnishes  only  examples,  in  which  one  or  the  other  is 
strongly  predominant.  It  is  our  duty,  in  order  to  draw 
the  lines  of  separation  between  opposite  classes,  to  pre 
sent  the  peculiar  qualities  in  a  strong  and  distinct  light. 
Nature  blends  them  in  harmonious  combinations. 

THE    SANGUINEOUS    TEMPERAMENT. 

The  temperament,  which  in  its  external  appearance, 
claims  the  highest  degree  of  physical  beauty,  is  the  san 
guineous.  Its  forms  are  moulded  by  nature  to  perfect 
symmetry,  and  invested  with  a  complexion  of  the 
clearest  lustre.  The  hands  of  the  artist  have  embodied 


O  THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS. 

its  outlines  in  the  majestically  graceful  Apollo  of  the 
Vatican.  Its  delicate  shape  is  "the  dream  of  love." 
A  mild  and  clear  eye  promptly  reveals  the  emotions  of 
the  heart ;  the  veins  swell  with  copious  and  healthful 
streams ;  and  the  cheek  is  quick  to  mantle  with  the 
crimson  current.  The  breath  of  life  is  inhaled  freely ; 
the  chest  is  high  and  expanded  like  that  of  "  a  young 
Mohawk  warrior ; "  the  pulse  is  active  but  gentle ;  the 
hah-  light ;  the  skin  soft  and  moist ;  the  face  unclouded ; 
and,  in  short,  the  whole  organization  is  characterized  by 
the  vigor  and  facility  of  its  functions. 

The  moral  character  of  those  who  belong  to  this 
temperament  is  equally  pleasing.  They  are  amiable 
companions,  every  where  welcome,  and  requiting  the 
kindness  shown  them  by  gentleness  of  temper  and 
elegance  of  manners.  They  are  distinguished  for  play 
fulness  of  fancy  and  ready  wit.  Their  minds  are  rapid 
in  their  conceptions,  and  pass  readily  from  one  subject 
to  another,  so  that  they  can  change  at  once  from  gaiety 
to  tears,  or  from  gravity  to  mirth.  Of  a  happy  mem 
ory,  a  careless  and  unsuspecting  mien,  a  contented 
humor,  a  frank  disposition,  they  form  no  schemes  of 
deep  hypocrisy  or  remote  ambition.  They  are  naturally 
affectionate,  yet  fickle  in  their  friendships ;  prompt  to 
act,  yet  uncertain  of  purpose.  They  excel  in  labors 
which  demand  a  most  earnest  but  short  application. 
They  conquer  at  a  blow,  or  abandon  the  game.  They 
gain  their  point  by  a  coup  de  main,  never  by  a  tedious 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  9 

siege.  They  are  easily  excited,  but  easily  calmed ;  they 
take  fire  at  a  word,  but  are  as  ready  to  forgive.  They 
dislike  profound  meditation,  but  excel  in  prompt  inge 
nuity  ;  they  succeed  in  light  exercises  of  fancy,  in  hap 
pily  contrasting  incongruous  objects,  and  inventing  sin 
gular  but  just  comparisons.  They  are  given  to  display, 
and  passionately  fond  of  being  admired.  Inconstant 
by  nature,  they  are  full  of  sympathy,  and  are  eminently 
capable  of  transferring  themselves  in  imagination  into 
other  scenes  and  conditions.  Hence  they  sometimes 
are  successful  in  the  lighter  branches  of  letters ;  but 
they  are  too  little  persevering  to  excel.  A  continuance 
of  intellectual  labor  is  odious  to  them ;  and  in  no  case 
have  they  been  known  to  unite  the  deep  sentiments  of 
philosophy  to  eloquent  language.  They  are  the  gayest 
members  of  society,  and  yet  the  first  to  feel  for  others. 
With  a  thousand  faults,  their  kindness  of  heart  makes 
them  always  favorites.  In  their  manners,  they  unite  a 
happy  audacity  with  winning  good  nature ;  their  con 
versation  is  gay,  varied,  and  sparkling ;  never  profound, 
but  never  dull ;  sometimes  trivial,  but  often  brilliant. 
Love  is  then-  ruling  passion ;  but  it  is  a  frolic  love,  to 
which  there  are  as  many  cynosures  as  stars.  It  is  Ki- 
naldo  in  the  chains,  which  he  will  soon  break  to  submit 
to  new  ones.  Occasionally  they  join  in  the  contest  for 
glory.  In  council  they  never  have  the  ascendant ;  but 
of  all  executive  officers  they  are  the  best.  They  often 
are  thrown  by  some  happy  chance  to  be  at  the  head  of 


10  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

affairs ;  but  they  never  retain  power  very  long.  They 
are  sometimes  even  delighted  with  camps ;  but  the 
field  of  arms  is  for  them  only  an  affair  for  a  holiday ; 
they  go  to  battle  as  merrily  as  to  a  dance,  and  are  soon 
weary  of  the  one  and  the  other.  Life  *is  to  them  a 
merry  tale ;  if  they  are  ever  sad,  it  is  but  from  com 
passion  or  the  love  of  change ;  and  they  breathe  out 
their  sighs  chiefly  in  sonnets.  Thus  they  seem  made 
for  sunshine  and  prosperity.  Nature  has  given  them 
the  love  of  enjoyment,  and  blessed  them  with  the  gift 
of  cheerfulness.  In  short,  this  temperament  is  to  the 
rest,  what  youth  is  to  the  other  periods  of  life ;  what 
spring  is  to  the  succeeding  seasons ;  the  time  of  fresh 
ness  and  flowers,  of  elastic  hope  and  unsated  desire. 

For  examples  of  this  temperament,  go  to  the  abodes 
of  the  contented,  the  houses  of  the  prosperous.  Ask 
for  the  gayest  among  the  gay  in  the  scenes  of  pleasure  ; 
search  for  those  who  have  stilled  the  voice  of  ambition 
by  the  gentle  influence  of  contented  affection.  In  the 
mythology  of  the  ancients,  among  whom  generally 
character  stood  forth  in  bolder  relief,  numerous  illus 
trations  may  be  found.  We  may  mention  Paris,  who, 
as  the  poet  says,  went  to  battle  like  the  war-horse 
prancing  to  the  river's  side,  and  who  valued  the  safety 
of  his  country  less  than  the  gratification  of  his  love ;  or 
Leander,  whose  passion  the  waters  of  the  Hellespont 
could  not  quench ;  or  the  too  fascinating  Endymion, 
who  drew  Diana  herself  from  her  high  career.  In  his- 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  11 

tory,  we  have  the  dangerous  Alcibiades,  who  surpassed 
all  other  Athenians  in  talent,  the  Spartans  in  self- 
denial,  the  Thracians  in  abandoned  luxury ;  Mark  An 
tony,  who,  for  a  time,  was  the  first  man  in  Rome,  but 
gave  up  the  world  for  Cleopatra ;  Nero,  the  capricious 
tyrant,  whose  tomb  was  yet  scattered  with  flowers ; 
the  English  Leicester,  for  whom  two  queens  contend 
ed  ;  the  gallant  Hotspur  of  the  British  drama ;  the 
French  duke  de  Richelieu ;  the  good  king  Henry ;  the 
bold  and  amiable  Francis ;  or  to  take  quite  a  recent 
example,  the  brave  and  gallant,  but  passionate  and 
wavering  Murat,  now,  in  time  of  truce,  displaying  his 
splendid  dresses  and  his  skill  in  horsemanship  be 
fore  the  admiring  Cossacks,  and  anon  in  the  season 
of  strife,  charging  the  enemy's  cavalry  with  fearless 
impetuosity.  But  we  have  the  most  striking  illustra 
tion  of  the  sanguineous  temperament,  when  uncon 
trolled  by  moral  principle,  in  the  life  and  character  of 
Demetrius,  the  famed  besieger  of  cities.  The  son  of 
Antigonus  was  tall,  and  of  beautiful  symmetry.  Grace 
and  majesty  were  united  in  his  countenance ;  so  that 
he  inspired  at  once  both  affection  and  awe.  In  his 
hours  of  leisure,  he  was  an  agreeable  profligate  ;  in  his 
moments  of  action,  no  man  equalled  him  in  diligence 
and  despatch.  Like  Bacchus,  he  was  terrible  in  war, 
but  in  peace  a  voluptuary.  At  one  time  he  hazards 
honor  and  liberty  for  the  indulgence  of  his  love ;  and 
at  another,  his  presence  of  mind  and  his  daring  make 


12  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

him  victorious  in  the  bloodiest  naval  battle  of  which 
any  record  exists.  Though  sometimes  capriciously 
cruel,  he  was  naturally  humane.  By  turns  a  king 
and  a  pensioner,  a  hero  and  a  profligate,  a  tyrant  and 
a  liberator,  he  conquered  Ptolemy,  besieged  Thebes, 
gave  freedom  to  Athens,  was  acknowledged  to  be  the 
most  active  warrior  of  his  age,  and  yet  died  in  cap 
tivity,  of  indolence  and  gluttony. 

Plutarch's  life  of  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  might  in 
deed  be  called  the  adventures  of  a  sanguineous  man, 
but  of  one  morally  abandoned.  Where  men  of  this 
temperament  are  distinguished  for  blamelessness  and 
purity,  they  comprise  within  themselves  all  that  is 
lovely  and  amiable  in  human  nature.  They  are  the 
fondest  husbands  and  the  kindest  fathers.  They  live 
in  an  atmosphere  of  happiness.  The  fables  of  Arcadia 
seem  surpassed  by  realities.  It  is  especially  in  early 
life  that  their  virtues  have  the  most  pleasing  fragrance ; 
"  severe  in  youthful  beauty,"  they  are  like  the  Israelites, 
who  would  not  eat  of  the  Eastern  king's  meat,  and  yet 
had  countenances  fairer  than  all.  These  are  they,  of 
whom  the  poets  praise  the  destiny  which  takes  them 
early  from  the  world.  These  are  the  favorites  of 
heaven,  who,  if  they  live  to  grow  old,  at  their  death 
"  fill  up  one  monument  with  goodness  itself." 

With  regard  to  the  preservation  of  health,  we  sum 
up  every  precept  for  the  sanguineous  man  in  this  one ; 
avoid  excess.  He  should  take  much  active,  but  not 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  13 

violent  exercise ;  and  must  be  careful  to  diminish  the 
tendency  to  plethora.  He  may  dance,  may  fence,  may 
indulge  in  field-sports,  or  use  any  of  the  exercises  of  a 
well  instituted  gymnasium  ;  but  all  moderately.  Na 
ture  has  made  him  prone  to  indulgence,  but  has  made 
indulgence  doubly  dangerous  for  his  constitution  and 
his  morals.  We  repeat  it :  let  him  avoid  excess,  and 
his  life  will  pass  away  in  uninterrupted  cheerfulness,  in 
deeds  of  courtesy  and  benevolence,  in  the  habitual 
exercise  of  the  gentle  and  the  generous  virtues. 

THE    ATHLETIC    TEMPERAMENT. 

The  athletic  temperament  possesses  in  some  re 
spects  the  external  appearance  of  the  sanguineous ;  but 
it  rises  to  a  colossal  stature,  and  is  possessed  of  extra 
ordinary  strength.  It  implies  an  excess  of  muscular 
force  over  the  sensitive.  In  superior  physical  powers,  it 
loses  all  playfulness  of  mind.  The  athletic  man  has 
great  vigor  of  frame,  but  is  of  an  inactive  spirit.  He 
never  attains  to  elevated  purposes,  or  a  fixed  character ; 
he  has  no  acuteness  or  insight  into  human  motives,  no 
gift  of  eloquence  or  poetry.  He  can  be  made  an  in 
strument  in  the  hands  of  others,  but  never  of  himself 
conceives  vast  enterprises.  He  is  good-humored,  and  by 
coaxing  and  flattery  may  be  persuaded  to  do  or  suffer 
almost  any  thing ;  but  if  his  passions  are  excited, 
he  is  capable  of  becoming  ferocious,  and  even  brutal. 


14       THE  DOCTRINE  OF  TEMPERAMENTS. 

The  sanguineous  man  often  becomes  athletic  by  a 
course  of  exercise,  fitted  to  give  the  greatest  develop 
ment  to  the  animal  nature. 

The  mythology  of  the  ancients  furnishes  examples 
of  this  class,  in  the  whole  race  of  the  Titans,  who 
thought  in  their  folly  that  they  could  scale  heaven, 
because  their  mighty  arms  could  rend  mountains  from 
their  bases.  But  the  best  instance  among  the  demi 
gods  is  Hercules.  The  brawny  hero  was  perpetually 
cozened  by  Eurystheus,  was  compelled  to  execute  the 
most  frightful  labors,  turned  rivers  from  their  courses, 
withdrew  the  dead  from  the  world  of  shades,  and 
struck  terror  into  the  powers  of  Orcus,  and  yet  was 
the  slave  of  his  appetites,  and  the  dupe  of  his  mistress. 
In  all  this  he  shows  the  excess  of  force  and  its  con 
comitant  mental  imbecility. 

If  we  turn  to  real  life  for  illustrations,  it  must  be 
remembered,  that  this  temperament  rarely  fills  the 
high  offices  of  power  and  trust.  The  historic  muse 
names  of  it  no  one  among  the  benefactors  of  mankind. 
Had  we  the  annals  of  the  amphitheatres  of  old,  we 
could  know  what  giant  son  of  the  human  race  had 
worn  the  highest  honors  for  prodigies  of  strength. 
In  the  unsettled  period  of  the  Roman  empire,  there 
are  not  wanting  instances  of  men,  who  gained  the 
diadem  by  being  the  strongest  of  those  that  joined 
in  the  scramble,  or  won  the  hearts  of  the  barbarian 
legions,  by  excelling  in  the  barbarian  virtue  of  mere 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  15 

physical  force.  There  was  too,  quite  recently,  a  Saxon 
elector,  or  rather  a  Polish  king,  who  could  break  a 
horse  shoe  though  he  could  not  govern  a  kingdom, 
and  was  more  successful  in  his  debaucheries,  than 
in  acquiring  the  respect  of  men.  He  pretended  to 
be  an  amateur  of  the  fine  arts,  when  he  really  under 
stood  nothing  but  the  chase.  He  left  the  government 
of  Saxony  to  his  minister  and  yet  believed  he  did 
every  thing  himself ;  he  found  the  Poles  troublesome 
to  manage  and  therefore  abandoned  them  to  anarchy ; 
the  capital  of  his  hereditary  dominions  was  menaced  by 
the  Prussians ;  he  fled  taking  with  him  his  pictures 
and  his  porcelain,  but  leaving  to  the  conqueror  the 
archives  of  the  state.  Every  body  knows  the  story 
of  his  father,  August  Frederic,  the  second  of  the 
name.  He  sold  his  fine  regiment  of  dragoons  to  his 
most  dangerous  neighbor  for  twelve  porcelain* vases. 
Once  his  mortal  enemy  Charles  the  Twelfth  of  Sweden, 
in  the  strangest  freak,  came  unexpectedly  and  unattend 
ed  to  breakfast  with  him  in  Dresden ;  some  hours  after 
the  king  had  rejoined  his  army,  Augustus  held  a  coun 
cil  to  consider  whether  he  ought  not  to  have  detained 
his  royal  guest  as  a  prisoner. 

In  republics,  this  athletic  temperament  can  have  no 
chance  to  gain  power ;  it  is  only  by  divine  right,  or  the 
favor  of  a  female  ruler,  that  it  can  hope  to  control  the 
fortunes  of  states.  The  study  of  history  leads  us  to  cry 
out  against  the  injustice  of  history ;  it  is  a  mere  accident, 


16  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

whether  genuine  worth  finds  a  place  there.  Philip,  the 
landgrave  of  Hesse,  was  a  great  friend  of  Protestant 
ism.  He  also  begged  of  Luther  leave  to  have  two  wives 
at  once.  This  was  a  strange  request  from  a  Christian 
prince  t<J  a  reformer  of  religion ;  but  Luther  decided 
the  request  to  be  a  reasonable  one.  Philip  was  always 
for  prompt  measures ;  he  struck  a  bold  blow,  or  none. 
Finding  war  too  troublesome,  he  left  the  business  to 
others,  and  gave  himself  up  to  slothful  indulgence. 
If  his  end  seems  inconsistent  with  his  earlier  years,  the 
riddle  is  solved  by  a  word ;  he  was  of  the  athletic  tem 
perament.  Indeed  the  whole  family  of  Hessian  princes 
has  had  a  tendency  to  that  class.  Frederic,  the  second 
of  the  line,  was  fond  of  splendor ;  £nd  not  famous  for 
nice  feeling.  He  sold  his  soldiers  at  a  high  rate. 
England  paid  him  more  than  twenty-one  millions  of 
rix  dollars  for  twelve  thousand  of  them,  for  eight 
years.  Why  is  it  worse  for  an  African  prince  to  dis 
pose  of  the  captives  whom  he  takes  in  war,  to  cultivate 
sugar  and  cotton  in  America,  than  for  a  Hessian 
prince  to  sell  his  own  subjects,  of  whom  he  has 
the  divine  right  to  be  the  parent  and  the  sovereign, 
to  fight  the  battles  of  England,  and  be  shot  at  for  less 
than  sixpence  a  day  ?  The  son  of  the  Landgrave  just 
mentioned,  was  one  of  the  richest  and  meanest  misers 
in 'Europe,  the  most  tyrannical  petty  despot  of  his  time. 
Inventing  a  new  right  of  primogeniture,  he  promulga 
ted  a  law  respecting  those  who  were  permitted  to  be 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  17 

educated,  and  allowed  the  clergy  generally,  and  some 
public  functionaries  of  a  certain  rank,  to  educate  only 
their  oldest  son.  We  connect  with  a  prince,  at  least 
some  ideas  of  external  splendor,  and  liberality  of  dis 
position.  But  what  shall  we  think  of  this  niggardly  au 
tocrat,  who  fumbled  in  the  pockets  of  the  poor  man  in 
quest  of  his  last  penny,  and  raked  the  barren  sands  of 
an  exhausted  soil  for  a  few  more  grains  of  gold  ? 

The  most  remarkable  of  all  historical  personages  of 
the  athletic  temperament,  was  Potemkin,  for  several 
years  the  unlimited  favorite  of  Catharine.  For  a  while 
men  thought  him  possessed  of  a  colossal  genius ;  but 
he  had  nothing  colossal  except  his  body.  He  had  no 
character,  and  soon  made  it  evident.  What  mighty 
events  spring  from  petty  causes !  An  inferior  officer 
saw  the  empress  display  herself  in  uniform  before  the 
guards ;  her  sword  was  without  tassels ;  he  tore  his 
own  from  the  hilt,  to  make  her  an  offering  of  them ; 
she  accepted  the  tribute,  and  became  enamored  of 
his  person ;  and  he  made  himself  her  master.  The 
chancellor  of  the  empire  outwitted  him;  so  that  the 
armed  neutrality  was  the  result  of  a  court  intrigue. 
His  mind  was  of  the  '  coarsest  order.  "  How  many 
prostitutes  are  there  in  Petersburgh  ?  "  said  she  to  him 
one  day.  "  Forty  thousand,"  replied  he,  "  without  the 
court."  He  was  excessively  grasping  and  excessively 
prodigal.  He  was  worth  thirty-five  millions  of  our 
dollars,  and  yet  could  not  be  induced  to  pay  a  trades- 
2 


18  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

man's  bill.  Catharine  lavished  on  him  immense  sums ; 
he  would  further  forge  checks  in  her  name  on  the  pub 
lic  treasury,  and  accept  bribes  from  foreign  powers. 
The  first  division  of  Poland  was  to  him  but  "  child's 
play."  When  the  Tartars  of  the  Crimea  hesitated  to 
take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Catharine,  he  ordered 
thirty  thousand  of  them  to  be  slaughtered  in  a  mass, 
men,  women  and  children.  The  grand  riband  of  the 
order  of  St.  George  is  given  in  Russia,  only  to  a  com- 
mander-in-chief,  after  a  victory.  To  gain  this,  he 
quarrelled  with  the  Porte  in  1787,  and  in  the  next 
year,  took  Otchakow  by  storm,  in  spite  of  sickness  and 
scarcity.  He  surpassed  all  men  of  his  time  in  prodi 
gality,  in  meanness,  in  sensual  indulgence,  and  capri 
cious  vanity.  He  died  at  last,  in  consequence  of  his 
excesses,  under  a  tree  by  the  road-side;  and  when 
Paul  came  to  the  crown,  the  body  of  Potemkin  was 
thrown  into  a  ditch. 

Such  is  the  athletic  temperament.  Its  excess  of 
health  and  strength  is  by  no  means  desirable.  When 
the  constitution  once  begins  to  fail,  it  is  broken  up 
suddenly  and  rapidly.  And  there  is  really  less  of  the 
true  vital  principle  in  this  temperament,  than  in  any 
other.  Those  who  belong  to  it  never  acquire  eminent 
intellectual  distinction;  and  are  ignorant  of  refined 
sensations.  No  prayers,  no  sacrifices,  no  exertions, 
not  even  nightly  vigils,  can  open  for  them  the  sanctu 
ary  of  the  muse  Heaven  has  conferred  on  them  a 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  19 

majestic  frame,  but  doomed  them  to  perpetual  medioc 
rity.  The  athletic  man  can  receive  few  rules  for  the 
regulation  of  his  health.  Indeed,  Hippocrates  pro 
nounces  his  usual  condition  to  be  a  state  of  malady. 
We  can  only  exhort  him  to  be  temperate,  and  to  use 
his  strength  with  discretion.  His  life  will  probably  not 
extend  to  old  age,  and  will  be  exposed  to  many  in 
firmities. 

In  history,  this  temperament  has  gained  distinction 
in  the  troublesome  times,  when  brutal  force  and  fierce 
indifference  were  in  the  ascendant.  In  poetry,  it  is 
illustrated  by  the  Ajax  of  Homer,  and  we  have  an  accu 
rate  description  of  it  in  Chaucer. 

"  The  Miller  was  a  stout  carl  for  the  nones, 
Eul  bigge  he  was  of  braun,  and  eke  of  bones ; 
That  proved  wel,  for  over  all  ther  he  came, 
At  wrastling  he  wold  bere  away  the  ram. 
He  was  short  shuldered,  brode,  a  thikke  gnarre, 
Ther  n'as  no  dore,  that  he  n'olde  heve  of  barre, 
Or  breke  it  at  a  renning  with  his  hede." 

THE    BILIOUS    TEMPERAMENT. 

We  turn  to  the  consideration  of  a  class  of  men,  to 
whom  the  destinies  of  the  world  are  generally  commit 
ted;  who  rule  in  the  cabinet  and  on  the  exchange; 
who  control  public  business,  and  guide  the  deliber 
ations  of  senates,  and  who,  whether  in  exalted  or  pri 
vate  stations,  unite  in  the  highest  degree  instant  saga- 


20  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

city  with  persevering  energy.  They  possess,  like  the 
sanguineous,  quickness  of  perception  and  rapidity  of 
thought ;  but  they  at  the  same  time  have  the  power  of 
confining  their  attention  to  a  single  object.  They  have 
good  practical  judgment ;  they  see  things  as  they  are, 
and  are  never  deceived  by  contemplating  measures  in  a 
false  light ;  they  have  a  clear  eye  to  pierce  the  secrets 
of  the  human  heart,  to  read  the  character  and  under 
stand  the  motives  of  others.  They  are  patient  and  in 
flexible  in  their  purposes ;  and  hoAvever  remote  may  be 
the  aim  of  their  desires,  they  labor  with  unwearied  toil 
even  for  a  distant  and  apparently  uncertain  success. 
They  are  prone  to  anger,  and  yet  can  moderate  or 
conceal  their  indignation.  Their  strongest  passion  is 
ambition;  all  other  emotions  yield  to  it;  even  love 
vainly  struggles  against  it ;  and  if  they  sometimes  give 
way  to  beauty,  they  in  their  pleasures  resemble  the 
Scythians  of  old,  who  at  their  feasts  used  to  strike  the 
cords  of  their  bows,  to  remind  themselves  of  danger. 
The  men  of  whom  we  are  speaking  are  urged  by  con 
stant  restlessness  to  constant  action.  An  habitual  sen 
timent  of  disquietude  allows  them  no  peace  but  in  the 
tumult  of  business ;  the  hours  of  crowded  life  are  the 
only  ones  they  value;  the  narrow  road  of  emulation 
the  only  one  in  which  they  travel. 

These  moral  characteristics  are  observed  to  be  con 
nected  with  a  form  more  remarkable  for  firmness  than 
for  grace.  The  complexion  is  generally  not  light ;  and 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  21 

• 

not  unfrequently  of  a  sallow  hue ;  the  hair  is  dark ;  the 
skin  dry ;  the  flesh  not  abundant,  but  firm ;  the  mus 
cular  force  great  in  proportion  to  the  volume  of  the 
muscles ;  the  eye  vivid  and  sparkling.  The  appetite  is 
voracious  rather  than  delicate;  the  digestion  rapid. 
Of  the  internal  organs,  the  liver  is  proportionably  the 
largest  and  the  most  active ;  and  its  copious  secretions 
give  a  name  to  the  class. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  those  who  belong  to  the 
bilious  temperament.  They  are  to  be  employed, 
wherever  hardiness  of  resolution,  prompt  decision, 
and  permanence  of  enterprise  are  required.  They 
unite  in  themselves  in  an  eminent  degree  the  manly 
virtues,  which  lead  to  results  in  action.  At  their  birth 
all  the  gods  came  to  offer  gifts ;  the  graces  alone  re 
mained  away.  They  stand  high  in  the  calendar  of  courts, 
and  know  how  to  woo  the  favor  of  the  citizens  of  re 
publics  ;  but  Cupid,  indignant  at  their  independence 
of  him,  degrades  them  in  his  beadroll.  They  do  not 
reign  in  the  world  of  fashion,  and  the  novel-writer 
could  make  of  an  Oxenstiern  or  a  Sully  an  imposing 
picture,  but  not  the  hero  of  a  sentimental  tale. 

Will  you  learn  from  living  examples,  what  is  the 
nature  of  the  bilious  temperament?  Walk  to  the 
exchange,  and  ask  who  best  understands  the  daring 
business  of  insurance  ?  Discover  by  whom  the  banks 
are  managed  which  give  the  surest  and  largest  divi 
dends?  Go  to  our  new  settlements  in  the  west, 


22  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

and  mark  the  men  who  are  early  and  late  riding 
through  the  majestic  forests  of  virgin  nature,  where 
the  progress  is  impeded,  it  is  true,  by  no  under 
wood,  but  where  every  hardship  must  be  endured, 
streams  forded,  nights  be  spent  under  the  open  sky, 
hunger  be  defied,  and  a  thousand  dangers  be  braved 
by  the  keen  speculator,  who  will  take  nothing  on  trust. 
Or  watch  the  arena  of  public  strife,  and  see  who  it  is, 
that  most  skilfully,  and  yet  most  secretly,  touches  the 
springs  of  national  action,  and  controls  the  distribution 
of  praise  and  emoluments  in  the  very  court  of  honor  ? 

Or  if  you  will  not  trust  yourself  with  scrutinizing 
the  motives  of  the  living,  consult  the  Muse  of  History, 
and  with  her  trumpet  tongue,  she  will  tell  you  of  those 
who  are  the  elect  of  her  heart,  those  who  fill  the  uni 
verse  with  their  fame,  and  have  swayed  their  times  by 
their  prowess  and  their  mental  power ;  from  the  mighty 
conquerors  of  earliest  antiquity,  whose  names  float  to 
us  among  the  wrecks  of  unknown  empires,  to  the  last 
wonderful  man,  who,  in  our  own  times,  dealt  with 
states  as  with  playthings,  and,  by  the  force  of  his  des 
potic  will,  shook  the  civilized  world  to  its  centre. 

Ancient  history  furnishes  perhaps  no  more  exact 
illustration  of  this  temperament,  than  in  the  charac 
ter  of  Themistocles.  In  his  boyhood  he  shunned 
boyish  sports ;  but  would  compose  declamations  and 
harangues.  He  says  of  himself,  that  he  had  learnt 
neither  to  tune  the  harp  nor  handle  the  lyre,  but  thai 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  23 

he  knew  how  tg  make  a  small  and  inglorious  city  both 
powerful  and  illustrious.  He  could  not  sleep  for  the 
trophies  of  Miltiades.  When  his  superior  in  the  com 
mand  raised  a  staff  to  repel  disagreeable  advice  by  a 
blow,  he  coolly  said,  "  Strike — but  hear  me,"  rendering 
patience  sublime  by  his  patriotism.  Having  been  a 
poor  and  disinherited  child,  he  made  his  way  to  the 
highest  honors  in  Athens,  and  for  a  season  controlled 
the  civilized  world.  "  He  was  the  first  of  men,"  says 
Thucydides,  ."for  practical  judgment."  Of  Romans 
we  might  name  as  of  the  bilious  temperament,  the 
elder  Brutus,  the  glorious  hypocrite,  who  hid  the  power 
of  his  genius  till  he  could  exert  it  for  liberty.  The 
greatest  foreigner  in  the  days  of  the  Republic  on  the 
Roman  soil  was  Hannibal,  and  he,  not  less  than  Julius 
Caesar,  was  of  the  bilious  class. 

But  were  we  to  select  an  example  among  those, 
who  at  any  time  have  been  masters  of  the  Seven  Hills, 
we  should  name  the  wonderful  Montalto,  Pope  Sextus 
V.  In  early  life  he  exerted  astonishing  industry  and 
talent,  made  himself  the  favorite  preacher  in  the  cities 
of  Italy,  and  afterwards  won  the  hearts  of  the  Spaniards, 
till  he  was  at  last  made  Cardinal.  Then  of  a  sudden 
his  character  seemed  changed ;  and  for  almost  twenty 
years  he  played  the  part  of  a  deceiver,  with  unequalled 
skill.  He  lived  at  a  retired  house,  kept  few  servants, 
was  liberal  in  his  expenses  for  charities,  but  parsimo 
nious  towards  himself ;  contradicted  no  one ;  submitted 


24  THE   DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

even  to  insults  with  perfect  good  humor ;  and,  in  short, 
acquired  the  reputation  of  being  the  most  meek,  the 
most  humble,  and  the  most  easily  guided  among  the 
cardinals.  Of  the  forty-two  cardinals  who  entered  the 
conclave,  Montalto  seemed  nearest  to  another  world. 
A  crutch  supported  the  declining  strength  of  his  old 
age ;  and  a  distressing  cough  indicated  that  life  was  fast 
consuming  away.  Six  parties  divided  the  assembly ; 
and  fourteen  cardinals  deemed  themselves  worthy  of 
the  tiara.  On  balloting,  Albano,  the  most  powerfully 
supported,  had  but  thirteen  votes.  Let  us  take  this 
good  natured,  dying  old  man,  thought  they ;  he  will  be 
easily  managed ;  and  four  parties  of  the  six  united  for 
Montalto.  The  ballot  was  ended ;  "  Gods  !  I  am  Pope 
of  Rome,"  exclaimed  the  hale  old  man.  Casting  from 
him  the  cloaks  in  which  he  was  muffled,  he  threw  his 
crutch  across  the  room,  and  bending  back,  spit  to 
the  ceiling  of  the  high  chamber  of  the  Vatican  in 
which  he  was,  to  show  the  vigor  of  his  lungs.  Never 
did  a  wiser  man  hold  the  keys  of  St.  Peter.  He  pun 
ished  vice  even  in  the  high  places,  with  inexorable  sever 
ity  ;  he  established  the  library  of  the  Vatican ;  placed  the 
magnificent  obelisk  in  front  of  St.  Peters ;  caused  the 
matchless  cupola  to  be  built ;  conducted  water  to  the 
Quirinal  Hill;  erected  a  vast  hospital  for  the  poor; 
made  the  splendid  street,  called  from  his  name  Felice ; 
reformed  the  finances  of  the  states  of  the  Church; 
and,  while  he  exercised  great  influence  on  the  affairs  of 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  25 

Christendom,  he  himself  kept  at  peace.  Since  his 
time,  the  Catholic  Church  has  not  had  at  its  head 
a  man  of  superior  genius. 

In  the  care  of  his  health  the  bilious  man  has  no 
excess  of  humors  that  require  to  be  dissipated  by  vio 
lent  exercise.  He  may  use  almost  any  kind  of  motion 
in  a  moderated  degree.  In  summer  he  must  avoid  fa 
tiguing  labors  during  the  heat  of  the  day.  Autumn  is 
,  the  best  season  for  him ;  especially  when  the  air  is  at 
once  cool  and  moist.  Then  in  the  midst  of  nature's 
decline  he  forms  projects  for  his  own  advancement; 
nor  does  he  always  pause,  though  his  path  to  success 
may  lead  through  the  ruin  of  others. 

THE  PHLEGMATIC  TEMPERAMENT. 

There  are  men,  not  absolutely  dull,  yet  not  of  livery 
sensibility ;  their  thoughts  are  exact,  but  neither  very 
gay,  nor  very  profound ;  their  ideas  come  tardily,  but 
with  precision ;  they  are  quiet ;  not  disposed  to  anger ; 
and  in  general,  pursue  a  middle  course.  They  are 
fond  of  repose,  and,  if  left  to  themselves,  would  sleep 
away  a  large  part  of  their  lives.  These  men  are  of  a 
light  and  often  delicate  complexion;  the  countenance 
is  without  expression ;  the  eye  tranquil ;  the  hair  of  no 
decided  color ;  the  muscles  of  great  volume,  but  feeble ; 
the  pulse  mild,  and  disappearing  under  a  firm  pressure. 
The  fibres  are  soft ;  the  humors  of  the  body  abound. 


26        THE  DOCTRINE  OF  TEMPERAMENTS. 

Such  are  the  characteristics,  moral  and  physical,  of  the 
phlegmatic,  or,  as  it  is  often  called,  the  lymphatic  tem 
perament. 

The  phlegmatic  man  is  tranquil  in  all  his  affections ; 
he  is  never  troubled  with  desperate  love.  As  he  pos 
sesses  neither  enterprise  nor  sudden  resolution,  he 
avoids  undertakings  wherein  those  qualities  would  be 
necessary.  He  cultivates,  or  rather  seems  naturally  to 
possess,  the  qualities  of  prudence  and  discretion.  His 
conduct  is  free  from  excesses ;  and  his  vices  and  virtues 
are  stamped  with  mediocrity.  He  easily  acquires  es 
teem,  and  never  excites  admiration.  He  is  not  tor 
mented  by  ambition,  or  a  thirst  for  praise ;  neither  is 
he  exposed  to  the  temptations  which  most  frequently 
and  most  dangerously  beset  the  weaknesses  of  others. 
But  let  him  not  be  proud  of  this  imagined  superiority. 
He  purchases  his  distinction  by  foregoing  the  highest 
pleasures  of  the  imagination  and  the  most  delicate 
enjoyments  of  existence.  Unfit  for  acting  in  sudden 
emergencies,  he  succeeds  perfectly  well  in  labors  which 
chiefly  require  patience,  where  gradual  advancement  is 
the  result  of  moderate  but  continued  efforts.  Hence 
he  is  sure  to  be  jostled  from  the  road  to  influence  in 
times  of  high  excitement ;  and  never  possesses  power 
but  in  seasons  of  profound  tranquillity.  It  is  with 
great  surprise  that  we  find  a  late  popular  writer  quote 
the  illustrious  Fox,  as  an  illustration  of  the  phleg 
matic  temperament.  Fox  was  given  to  pleasure  as  well 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  27 

as  to  business ;  he  had  taste,  philanthropy,  warm  feel 
ings,  impetuous  daring,  many  of  the  most  honorable 
qualities  of  the  sanguineous  man.     The  British  minis 
ters  of  greatest  note,  from  Lord  Burleigh  to  Canning, 
were  generally  of  the  bilious  temperament.     But  if  we 
must  give  a  great  name  as  an  example  of  this  class, 
we  should  take  the  philosopher  and  historian  Hume. 
The  Dutch  are   nationally  of  this   organization.      It 
would  not  seem  to  suit  the  character  of  a  poet ;  but 
Thomson  was  a  phlegmatic  man,  "  more  fat  than  bard 
beseems,"  though  youthful  admirers  may  find  it  diffi 
cult  to  reconcile  this  opinion  with  their  idea  of  the  poet 
of  the  Seasons.    Take  these  lines  as  proof  of  his  nature : 
"  But  first  the  fuel'd  chimney  blazes  wide ; 
The  tankards  foam ;  and  the  strong  table  groans 
Beneath  the  smoking  sirloin,  stretched  immense 
From  side  to  side,  in  which,  with  desperate  knife, 
They  deep  incision  make." 

And  when  he  compares  the  steam  of  hot  punch  to  the 
breath  of  May  as  it  comes  over  violets,  and  praises  the 
ale  which  is 

-  "  not  afraid, 
E'en  with  the  vineyard's  best  produce  to  vie," 

the  verses,  on  the  whole,  are  as  barbarous  in  their 
measure  as  they  are  phlegmatic  in  their  conception. 

No  exercise  is  too  violent  for  the  man  of  this  tem 
perament.  His  sleeping  energies  must  be  awakened ; 
his  imagination  roused  from  its  lethargy  by  powerful 


28  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

excitement.  In  summer,  to  guard  against  his  natural 
lassitude,  let  him  rise  in  time  to  help  Hyperion  to  his 
horse ;  and  quicken  his  system  by  a  cold  bath ;  then, 
careless  of  the  heat,  he  may  plunge  into  the  forest  and 
pursue  the  chase,  till  real  fatigue  gives  him  a  claim  to 
repose.  In  winter  he  may  run  at  full  speed  till  his 
heavy  frame  pants  for  breath;  or  wrestle  violently 
with,  an  equal  antagonist  till  his  chill  blood  flows 
warmly  to  his  cheek.  Nor  need  he  shun  the  social 
circle  and  the  festive  dance.  The  society  of  the  gay 
will  not  undermine  his  gravity,  and  the  noise  of  mirth 
and  the  sight  of  beauty  will  never  be  too  stimulating 
for  his  sluggish  passions. 

THE    MELANCHOLIC    TEMPERAMENT. 

Observe  the  pensive  man,  who  stands  musing  apart 
from  the  rest,  and  whom  we  should  think  bilious  but 
for  the  compression  of  his  chest.  His  countenance  is 
pallid  or  sallow;  and  his  features  are  expressive  of 
melancholy.  He  is  lean,  yet  of  great  muscular  vigor ; 
his  eyes  are  clear  and  brilliant,  yet  of  a  sombre  expres 
sion.  His  hair  is  dark,  and  does  not  readily  curl.  He 
is  rather  tan,  and  not  ill-formed,  yet  slender ;  his  breast 
is  narrow,  and  confines  the  play  of  his  lungs ;  he 
stoops  as  he  sits  or  walks.  His  internal  organization  is 
marked  by  energy  and  life ;  but  the  action  of  the  sys 
tem  meets  with  obstructions.  His  nerves  are  extremely 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  29 

sensitive ;  yet  generous  warmth  is  wanting  to  mollify 
and  expand  their  extremities.  His  blood  circulates 
with  languor,  and  if  he  is  long  exposed  to  the  cold  in  a 
state  of  inactivity,  it  is  soon  chilled.  His  stomach  is 
apt  to  become  indolent ;  he  is  liable  to  the  anguish  of 
difficult  digestion.  Such  are  the  physical  peculiarities 
of  the  melancholic  temperament. 

The  man  of  this  class  unites  an  habitual  distrust  of 
himself  and  weak  indecision  in  common  affairs,  with 
obstinate  persistence  in  matters  on  which  he  is  decided, 
and  undaunted  perseverance  in  pursuing  one  object. 
When  he  has  no  strong  motive  to  fix  him,  his  wavering 
exposes  him  to  the  reproach  of  pusillanimity ;  and  he 
might  find  it  difficult  to  repel  the  charge,  were  it  not 
that  it  is  impossible  to  make  him  swerve  from  a  purpose 
once  adopted.  Beauty  has  an  inconceivable  and  mys 
terious  power  over  him.  He  deserts  the  society  of  the 
wise  and  learned,  the  disputes  of  politicians  and  the  dis 
cussions  of  men  of  business,  for  the  unquiet  enjoyment 
which  he  finds  in  its  vicinity.  Yet  while  he  yields  to 
the  temporary  influence  and  dominion  of  any  one  who 
is  lovely,  he  is  slow  to  form  an  attachment ;  and  if  his 
affections  are  once  engaged,  his  love  bears  the  seal  of 
eternity.  In  his  intercourse  with  men,  he  avoids  all 
society  which  does  not  suit  his  habits  of  mind ;  but  he 
is  sincere  in  his  friendships,  and,  we  must  also  add, 
slow  to  forgive  an  injury.  The  recollection  of  a  wrong 
remains  imprinted  almost  indelibly  on  his  memory.  In 


30  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

society  his  manners  are  embarrassed  and  often  awk 
ward  ;  yet  he  does  not  fail  to  excite  interest  and  a  sen 
timent  akin  to  compassion.  When  he  converses,  his 
imagination  exerts  itself  powerfully,  and  he  often  uses 
original  and  singularly  expressive  forms  of  language. 
Indeed  the  imagination  is  at  all  times  the  strongest 
faculty  of  his  mind.  It  creates  a  world  for  him,  all 
unlike  the  real  one.  He  does  not  see  things  as  they 
are,  but  beholds  in  them  only  the  reflections  of  his  own. 
representations.  His  delight  is  in  profound  sentiment, 
and  he  excels  in  the  delineation  of  strong  passions  and 
intense  suffering.  Powerful  motives  are  required  to 
bring  him  to  action.  If  suddenly  called  upon,  when 
he  is  not  moved,  he  falters ;  can  decide  on  nothing ; 
and  appears  to  exhibit  a  complete  inefficiency  and  un- 
suitableness  for  business.  But  if  strong  excitement  ac 
companies  the  unexpected  summons,  he  comes  with 
energy  and  decision  to  the  guidance  of  affairs,  pours 
forth  his  ideas  in  a  torrent  of  extraordinary  and  irre 
sistible  eloquence,  and  surpasses  all  expectation.  It  is 
a  weakness  of  the  melancholic  man,  that  he  is  always 
contemplating  himself;  the  operations  of  his  own  mind, 
the  real,  or  more  probably,  the  imaginary  woes  of  his 
own  experience.  The  sanguineous  man  is  happy  in  his 
fickleness ;  the  bilious  enjoys  himself  in  the  stir  of 
action ;  the  phlegmatic  is  content,  if  he  is  but  left  alone 
to  repose  undisturbed  ;  the  melancholic  is  quite  satis 
fied  only  when  discoursing,  or  musing  on  himself  and 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  31 

his  sorrows.  So  far  lie  is  liable  to  the  charge  of  vanity  ; 
but  no  further.  He  does  not  form  too  high  an  estimate 
of  himself;  self-conceit  is  the  peculiar  foible  of  the  san 
guineous.  Love  is  the  ruling  passion  of  the  sangui 
neous  ;  ambition  of  the  bilious ;  the  melancholy  man  is 
haunted  by  a  longing  for  glory.  This  gives  an  impulse 
to  his  patriotism ;  this  kindles  his  imagination  and  leads 
him  to  beautiful  designs ;  this  prompts  him  to  enter  on 
the  career  of  letters ;  this  not  unfrequently  drives  him 
with  irresistible  power  to  nightly  vigils  and  immode 
rate  toil,  in  the  hope  to  enshrine  his  name  among  the 
immortal.  He  is  timid,  and  his  fastidious  taste  is 
never  satisfied  with  what  he  performs,  though  of  all 
men  he  can  least  brook  censure ;  so  that  he  exhibits 
the  apparent  contradiction  of  relying  most  obstinately 
on  a  judgment  which  he  himself  distrusts.  This  diffi 
dence  of  himself  may  at  first  seem  to  injure  the  perfec 
tion  and  utility  of  his  labors.  But  his  doubting  makes 
him  anxious  to  finish  his  productions  in  the  most  care 
ful  manner.  To  what  else  do  we  owe  the  perfect  grace 
and  harmony  of  Virgil?  the  compact  expression  and 
polished  elegance  of  Gray  ? 

If  the  melancholic  man  errs  in  his  practical  estimate 
of  men,  he  at  least  studies  the  principles  according  to 
which  they  act,  and  carefully  analyzes  their  motives 
and  passions.  He  understands  the  internal  operations 
of  their  minds,  even  while  he  is  unsuccessful  in  his 
direct  attempts  at  influencing  them.  He  is  himself 


32  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

capable  of  a  high  and  continued  enthusiasm.  Gifted 
with  affections  which  may  be  refined  and  elevated,  he 
can  feel  admiration  for  all  that  is  beautiful  and  un 
selfish  among  men ;  can  pay  homage  to  the  fine  arts  ; 
or  be  admitted  to  enjoy  the  serious  pleasures  afforded 
by  philosophy  and  poetry.  He  has  no  talent  for  light 
humor  and  pleasantry  ;  but  he  excels  in  bitter  retorts 
and  severity  of  satire.  He  is  subject  to  ecstasies  of 
pleasure  no  less  than  of  pain  ;  and  the  former  become 
him  less  than  the  latter.  He  possesses  the  virtue  of 
patience  in  the  most  eminent  degree.  Nothing  can 
fatigue  or  subdue  him.  Disappointments  do  not  weary 
him,  nor  can  he  be  baffled  by  delay. 

The  history  of  literature  and  the  arts  is  full  of  ex 
amples  of  this  temperament ;  on  the  world  also,  it  has 
frequently  exercised  a  wide  and  lasting  influence.  The 
most  eloquent  of  modern  philosophers,  the  gifted  child 
of  Geneva,  the  outcast  of  fortune,  offers  an  illustration. 
How  brilliant  is  his  imagination !  What  timidity 
marks  his  character  in  smaller  affairs  !  What  daunt 
less  courage  animated  him,  when  he  published  truths 
in  defiance  of  the  Roman  Church  and  the  ven 
geance  of  despots  !  What  a  power  also  was  exercised 
over  him  by  beauty !  How  willingly  he  offers  his 
Eloise  in  manuscript,  on  gilt-edged  paper,  neatly 
sewed  with  ribands,  to  his  accomplished  patroness ! 
What  ignorance  of  the  world  do  we  find  in  him,  and 
yet  what  discriminating  delineations  of  the  passions  and 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  33 

hearts  of  men  !  So  long  as  a  love  of  truth,  of  liberty, 
of  virtue,  shall  avail  with  charity  to  mitigate  the  con 
demnation  of  vices,  which  a  defect  of  education  may 
palliate  but  not  excuse  ;  so  long  as  splendor  of  imagina 
tion,  keen  reasoning,  eloquent  reproofs  of  fashionable 
follies  and  crimes,  in  a  word,  the  fine  thoughts  and 
style  of  genius,  shall  be  admired,  the  name  and  the 
writings  of  Rousseau  will  be  remembered,  and  the  ana 
lysis  of  his  mind  explain  the  organization  which  we  are 
describing. 

In  English  poetry,  Cowley  seems  to  have  been  of 
this  temperament.  Milton,  originally  bilious,  acquired 
something  of  it  from  age  and  misfortunes.  It  was 
natural  to  the  bard  of  Mantua ;  it  threw  the  thick 
cloud  of  self-torturing  gloom  over  the  poet  of  chivalry 
and  the  cross,  the  sweetest  minstrel  of  his  country, 
or  rather  of  all  time,  the  inimitable  Tasso. 

These  are  instances  of  men  devoted  to  letters. 
History  describes  Demosthenes  as  of  a  slender  form 
and  short  breath ;  therefore,  we  infer,  of  a  narrow 
chest.  His  physiognomy  has  a  gloomy  expression,  as 
we  know  not  only  from  the  busts  of  him,  but  from  the 
insolent  jests  of  ^Eschines.  He  is  represented  as  of 
unyielding  fixedness  of  purpose  ;  a  man,  whom  neither 
the  factions  of  the  people,  nor  the  clamors  of  the  aris 
tocratic  party,  nor  the  gold  of  Macedonia,  could  move 
from  the  career  of  disinterested  patriotism.  Arriving 
at  early  manhood,  he  found  an  object  worthy  of  the 
3 


34  THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS. 

employment  of  his  life,  and  remained  true  to  it  in  dan 
ger,  in  power,  in  success,  in  defeat, — at  home,  on  em 
bassies,  in  exile,  and  in  death.  He  was  an  ardent  lover 
of  liberty,  smitten  also  with  a  true  passion  for  glory. 
Moreover  in  spite  of  his  perseverance,  he  was  naturally 
timid.  When  he  was  presented  at  the  court  of  Philip, 
he  is  said  to  have  been  embarrassed,  and  to  have 
shown  no  proofs  of  his  greatness.  When  called  from 
the  forum  to  the  camp,  he  was  not  at  once  capable  of 
directing  the  battle.  He  was  accustomed  never  to 
address  the  Athenians  except  after  careful  preparation ; 
yet,  on  great  occasions,  he  was  sometimes  raised 
beyond  himself,  and  if  excited  and  compelled  to  speak, 
he  did  it  as  it  were  by  inspiration,  and  with  irresisti 
ble  force.  Ah1  these  things  are  traits  of  the  melancholic 
temperament. 

We  think  we  are  abundantly  authorized  by  his 
torical  evidence  in  these  remarks  on  Demosthenes ; 
though,  as  far  as  our  knowledge  extends,  he  is  cited 
in  none  of  the  books  of  physiology.  To  this  class 
we  venture  to  add  the  name  of  one  still  more  glorious 
in  human  annals,  and  we  do  it  confidently,  relying  on 
the  portraits  of  his  person  and  his  moral  character. 
It  is  the  illustrious  mariner  to  whom  this  country  has 
recently  paid  high  honors,  by  the  pen  of  Washington 
Irving.  We  mean  Christopher  Columbus,  who  was 
inspired  by  the  innate  majesty  of  his  own  soul,  to  sail 
so  far  into  an  unknown  hemisphere, 


THE   DOCTRINE  OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  35 

"  Ch'  appena  seguira  con  gli  occhi  il  volo 
La  Fama,  ch'  ha  mille  occhi,  e  mille  penne. 
Canta  ella  Alcide,  e  Bacco,  e  di  te  solo, 
Basti  a  i  poster!  tuoi  ch'  alquanto  accenne ; 
Che  quel  poco  dara  lunga  memoria 
Di  poeina  dignissima,  e  d'  istoria." 
Thus  we  see,  that  persons  of  the  melancholic  tem 
perament,  possess  great  means  of  influencing  others, 
and  exercising  power  over  the  destinies  of  mankind. 
In  our  account  of  it,  we  have  purposely  avoided  men 
tioning  the  monstrous  crimes,  which  are  described  by 
Cabanis,  Richerand,   and   other  physiologists,  as   its 
natural  effects.     They   are  not   so.     Providence   has 
made  no  temperament  morally  evil  or  good.     It  has 
exposed  each  to  its  own  temptations,  and  facilitated  to 
each  the  acquisition  of  virtues.     The  rashness  of  the 
sanguineous  is  counteracted  by  humanity  and  the  softer 
virtues ;  the  ambition  of  the  bilious  by  clear  reason  and 
a  quick  perception  of  what  is  just ;  the  weakness  of  the 
melancholic  by  patience   and  unwearied   application. 
But  it  must  be  confessed  that  when  they  become  cor 
rupt,  their  vices  may  produce  very  different  degrees  of 
horror.     The  bilious  man  is  never  wantonly  cruel  or 
wicked.     Caesar,  in  his  ambition,  finished  the  ruin  of 
his  country's  liberties,  but  his  success  was  not  sullied 
by  bloody  vengeance.     Nero,  who  was  sanguineous, 
was  at  first  humane,  then  fickle,  then  corrupt,  and 
when  his  innocence  was  gone,  he  made  men  miserable 
for  his  amusement.     Vengeance  is  the  crime  of  the 


36       THE  DOCTRINE  OF  TEMPERAMENTS. 

melancholic.  Witness  the  proscriptions  of  Sylla. 
When  the  melancholic  man  surrenders  himself  to 
the  influence  of  malignant  or  degrading  passions, 
he  is  cold  and  merciless;  his  imagination  is  full  of 
corrupt  images ;  his  lusts  are  unnatural ;  his  breast 
conceives  dark  and  hateful  designs ;  he  becomes  in 
different  to  consequences ;  he  neither  respects  the  hap 
piness  of  others  nor  is  awed  by  the  prospect  of  his  own 
ruin ;  he  is  deaf  to  the  voice  of  humanity,  reckless  of 
nature,  of  God,  and  of  eternity.  Tiberius,  Dornitian, 
Philip  II.  of  Spain ;  these  are  examples, — would  there 
were  no  more, — that  the  melancholic  temperament  may 
be  ruinous  to  public  happiness.  The  mind  turns  gladly 
from  these  men  of  atrocious  souls,  to  the  milder  virtues 
and  the  better  genius  of  Burke  or  the  elder  Pitt. 

Let  the  melancholic  man,  if  he  values  health  of 
body,  qf  mental  peace,  never  yield  to  indolence,  and 
shun  solitude  when  his  fancy  begins  to  brood  darkly 
over  his  cares.  His  diet  should  be  rich,  moderate  in 
quantity,  but  nutritious.  Pasting,  or  a  low  fare, 
might  give  his  passions  a  tragical  power.  Light  wines 
he  may  freely  use.  In  winter,  if  he  will  but  be  often 
abroad,  the  cold  weather  will  call  off  his  thoughts  from 
his  troubles.  Sufficient  exercise  by  day,  and  cheerful 
company  in  the  evening,  will  keep  him  in  a  good  con 
dition.  Summer  is  the  dangerous  season  for  him.  The 
solitary  admiration  of  nature  confirms  all  his  evils. 
"  Go,  soft  enthusiast !  quit  the  cypress  groves, 
Nor  to  the  rivulet's  lonely  moanings  tune 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  37 

Your  sad  complaint.     Go,  seek  the  cheerful  haunts 
Of  men,  and  mingle  with  the  bustling  crowd ; 
Lay  schemes  for  wealth,  or  power,  or  fame,  the  wish 
Of  nobler  minds,  and  push  them  night  and  day. 
Or  join  the  caravan  in  quest  of  scenes 
New  to  your  eyes  and  shifting  every  hour, 
Beyond  the  Alps,  beyond  the  Apennines. 
Or  more  adventurous,  rush  into  the  field 
Where  war  grows  hot ;  and  raging  through  the  sky, 
The  lofty  trumpet  swells  the  maddening  soul." 

THE   NERVOUS    TEMPERAMENT. 

We  have  finished  the  enumeration  of  temperaments, 
as  described  by  the  fathers  of  medicine.  The  Greeks 
recognized  but  four,  considering  the  athletic  only  as  a 
modification  of  the  sanguineous.  Modern  writers 
form  a  distinct  class  of  the  athletic,  and  they  add 
another,  of  which  examples  doubtless  existed  among 
the  ancients,  and  which  in  modern  times  embraces  no 
inconsiderable  portion  of  mankind. 

The  temperament  to  which  we  allude  is  the  ner 
vous.  We  cannot  readily  give  a  type  of  its  moral 
character,  for  a  part  of  its  peculiarity  is,  that  it  admits 
of  the  most  various  modifications.  It  is  known  by  the 
predominance  of  the  sensitive  part  of  the  system.  It 
is  not  that  the  nerves  are  deranged,  or  delicate,  or 
weak ;  on  the  contrary,  the  action  of  the  nerves  is  dis- 


38  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

proportionately   powerful ;    they   do    their  office  too 
effectually. 

The  nervous  temperament  is  marked  by  extreme 
sensibility.  An  impression  is  easily  made ;  the  mind 
is  active  and  volatile ;  flying  hastily  from  one  subject 
and  one  feeling  to  another,  not  from  fickleness,  but 
from  a  rapidity  of  associations.  It  is  quick  in  making 
combinations  and  forms  its  resolutions  suddenly ;  but 
the  durability  of  these  resolutions  depends  on  the 
texture  of  the  fibres.  If  they  are  effeminate,  the  char 
acter  is  fickle;  if  they  are  hard,  and  in  man,  this 
usually  happens,  the  character  is  firm  and  possessed  of 
decision.  In  the  latter  case  the  nervous  man  is  lean, 
and  as  it  were  emaciated;  his  muscles  are  compact; 
the  eye  bright  and  rapid.  He  is  capable  of  the  most 
diversified  action.  He  can  instantaneously  break  from 
deep  devotion  to  give  himself  up  to  amusement,  from 
sympathy  with  the  sorrows  of  others  to  mix  in  gaiety. 
Sometimes  he  is  distinguished  in  public  speaking ; 
but  wit  and  sarcasm,  frequent  illustrations,  abrupt 
transitions,  are  more  natural  to  him  than  careful 
reasoning  or  impassioned  eloquence.  He  is  scarcely 
ever  pathetic ;  but  he  excels  in  epigrammatic  con 
ceits,  in  the  quick  perception  of  the  ludicrous,  and 
in  the  pointed  expression  of  his  ideas.  He  delights 
in  proverbs,  and  manufactures  new  ones.  He  is  com 
monly  eccentric  in  his  ways ;  and  while  he  is  fre 
quently  suspected  of  levity  by  the  world,  he  retorts 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS.  39 

upon  it  by  a  cold  philosophy,  and  a  "contempt  for 
the  malignant  vulgar."  The  people  of  Neufchatel 
dismissed  their  pastor,  because  he  disbelieved  in  the 
eternity  of  future  punishments.  The  pastor  appealed 
to  Frederic,  who  declined  interference.  "  If,"  said 
he,  and  it  was  his  only  and  his  formal  answer, — "if 
the  people  of  Neufchatel  insist  on  being  damned 
for  ever,  I  shall  interpose  no  objections."  Frederic 
is  the  most  striking  example  of  the  nervous  tem 
perament.  Voltaire  also  •  belonged  to  it.  So  too  in 
the  north,  we  have  no  hesitation  in  classing  under 
it  the  Russian  Suwarrow.  In  antiquity  we  think  that 
Socrates  was  an  instance  of  it ;  to  the  many  he  seemed 
an  odd  buffoon  ;  but  his  friends  and  pupils  knew  that 
his  mind  held  glorious  converse  with  the  sublimest 
truths.  We  further  venture  the  suggestion,  that  the 
eccentric  apostate,  the  gifted  Julian,  possessed  the 
traits  of  the  nervous  class.  Were  we  to  name  two 
more,  they  should  be  the  emperor  Hadrian  of  Rome, 
and  his  counterpart,  the  emperor  Joseph  of  Austria. 

Where  this  temperament  exists  in  an  intense  de 
gree,  it  becomes  a  malady.  Its  remedy  is  exercise. 
The  balance  must  be  restored  between  the  sensitive 
and  the  muscular  forces ;  and  this  can  be  effected  only 
by  diminishing  the  action  of  the  intellect  and  cultiva 
ting  that  of  the  animal  nature.  Nothing  else  can  give 
rest.  Friendship,  letters,  business,  action,  all  will 
not  avail,  or  rather  will  but  increase  the  evil.  The 


40  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

labors  of  agriculture,  or  any  labor  abroad,  which  will 
gently  occupy  the  thoughts,  and  at  the  .same  time 
strengthen  the  body,  are  of  most  service.  Children 
of  this  class  suffer  from  too  early  attempts  to  cultivate 
their  minds.  Such  attempts  are  immediately  followed 
by  great  apparent  results,  but  do  in  fact  confirm  the 
natural  weakness  and  misfortune  of  the  individual. 

THE   TEMPERED    TEMPERAMENT. 

It  will  hardly  be  necessary  to  repeat,  that  these 
temperaments  are  seldom  found  unmixed,  although 
one  is  usually  predominant.  In  general  it  may  be 
observed,  that  the  sanguineous  prevails  at  the  north ; 
the  bilious  at  the  south ;  the  phlegmatic  in  cold  and 
moist  marshy  countries.  In  our  immediate  vicinity, 
examples  of  the  sanguineous  occur  more  frequently 
than  of  any  other.  A  mixture  of  the  sanguineous 
and  the  bilious  is  very  common,  and  forms  the  tem 
perament  best  suited  for  the  faithful  and  tranquil  dis 
charge  of  private  duties.  The  melancholic  is  also  not 
rare ;  the  nervous  is  uncommon,  except  in  the  other 
sex;  busy  America  does  not  produce  decided  cases 
enough  of  the  phlegmatic  to  bring  them  into  the 
account. 

And  which  is  the  best  temperament  ?  Each  is 
content  with  itself.  The  bilious  man  thinks  no  hours 
worth  remembering,  except  those  which  have  been 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  41 

passed  in  the  midst  of  ambitious  toil.  But  do  you  think 
that  the  sanguineous  will  desert  his  pleasant  fireside, 
abandon  his  cheerfulness,  and  restrain  the  fickle  wan 
derings  of  his  affections,  for  all  the  boasted  superiority 
of  the  bilious  temperament  ?  Or  that  the  melancholic 
man,  in  love  with  himself  and  his  mournful  humor,  de 
sires  a  change  in  his  constitution  ?  Or  that  the  phleg 
matic  indolence,  which  cares  not  whether  the  world 
was  made  for  Caesar  or  no,  would  wish  to  part  with  its 
indifference,  and  figure  in  the  career  of  public  honors  ? 
Providence  has  been  merciful  and  benevolent  to  each. 
The  best  temperament,  the  beau  ideal,  is  compounded 
of  all  the  rest,  and  we  will  call  it  the  tempered  temper 
ament;  in  which  the  happiest  proportion  of  the  ele 
ments  is  observed,  so  that  nature  may  be  proud  of  her 
production.  This  model  may  never  have  existed  in  per 
fection  :  many  of  the  wise  and  good,  who  have  been 
the  benefactors  of  mankind,  have  approached  near 
to  it ;  our  own  Washington  nearest  of  all. 

We  have  now  explained  the  six  classes,  into  which 
all  physical  peculiarities  and  the  corresponding  moral 
ones  may  be  resolved.  It  no  longer  remains  difficult  to 
show  how  men  vary  from  one  another  in  the  manner  in 
which  we  have  stated.  That  a  peculiar  temperament 
distinguishes  a  nation,  no  one  who  will  consult  history, 
or  look  through  the  world,  at  the  Turks,  the  Dutch, 
the  Spaniards,  can  deny.  It  is  equally  obvious  that 
the  same  defects  and  advantages  of  original  organi- 


42  THE    DOCTRINE    OF    TEMPERAMENTS. 

zation  are  transmitted  in  families.  The  distinction 
between  individuals  is  as  apparent  as  between  the 
races. 

It  is  only  in  the  comparison  between  man  in  one 
age  and  another,  that  physiologists,  following  the  indi 
cations  of  Plato  in  his  impracticable  theory  of  a  repub 
lic,  believe  it  possible  to  effect  great  changes  and  im 
provements  in  his  condition.  When  these  ingenious 
observers  are  admitted  to  offer  counsel,  the  most  bril 
liant  prospects  are  opened  for  the  amelioration  of  the 
human  race,  and  the  happiness,  health,  and  virtue  of 
future  generations.  The  companions  of  man's  exist 
ence,  his  dogs  and  his  horses,  have  already  seen  the 
epoch  of  regeneration ;  it  does  but  remain  for  him  now 
to  try  upon  himself,  what  he  has  so  successfully  at 
tempted  upon  others ;  to  review,  says  the  illustrious 
Cabanis,  who,  for  the  most  part,  uses  words  consider 
ately,  "  to  review  arid  correct  the  work  of  nature."  "  A 
daring  enterprise "  he  may  well  add.  In  that  happy 
condition,  which  the  physiologists  are  to  prepare,  the 
inequalities  of  temperaments  are  to  be  removed,  and  a 
mixture  of  the  elements  in  the  happiest  proportions  is 
to  form  a  healthful  body,  the  dwelling  and  the  instru 
ment  of  a  healthful  mind.  There  will  then  be  no  more 
of  atrabilious  frenzy ;  no  more  of  athletic  dulness  ;  the 
phlegmatic  are  to  exchange  their  inertness  for  the  live 
lier  exercise  of  their  bodies  and  the  cheering  efforts  of 
imagination;  and  the  sanguineous  to  be  metamor- 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   TEMPERAMENTS.  43 

phosed  from  frivolity  to  fixedness,  from  inattention 
and  indecision  to  steadfastness  of  purpose.  There  is 
still  to  be  an  infinite  variety  of  character,  resulting 
chiefly  from  the  influence  of  climate,  age,  regimen,  and 
pursuits ;  but  there  is  to  be  no  more  excess.  Good 
ness  is  to  be  ingrafted  on  every  member  of  the  human 
race.  There  is  to  be  no  more  sorrowing  for  ideal 
suffering ;  the  compressed  lungs  of  the  melancholy  are 
to  find  relief  and  freedom;  their  sombre  features  to 
kindle  with  habitual  cheerfulness.  And  then  this 
blessed  age  of  our  late  posterity,  is  to  wonder  at 
the  present ;  and  to  read  with  astonishment,  that  the 
science  of  physiology  and  the  kindred  studies  have  had 
no  more  influence  in  a  century  which  boasts,  and  in 
many  respects  may  justly  boast,  of  its  enlightened 
condition. 

With  the  best  wishes  for  this  improved  race  of 
man,  which  future  times  may  behold,  we  turn  to  the 
world  around  us,  where  the  thousand  inadvertencies, 
follies,  and  excesses  of  men,  continue  to  make  them 
heirs  to  a  thousand  evils.  Enough  we  believe,  has 
been  said  to  show,  that  the  care  and  culture  of  the 
physical  system  should  be  methodically  pursued,  in 
order  to  promote  the  health,  just  action,  and  harmo 
nious  co-operation  of  the  body  and  the  mind. 


ENNUI. 


i. 


ENNUI  is  a  word  which  the  French  invented, 
though  of  all  nations  in  Europe  they  know  the  least 
of  it;  while  the  Turks,  with  their  untiring  gravity, 
lethargic  dignity,  blind  fatalism,  opium-eating,  and 
midnight  profligacies,  have  undoubtedly  the  largest 
share.  Next  to  the  Turks,  the  English  suffer  most 
from  it.  Hear  the  account  which  their  finest  poetical 
genius  of  the  present  century  gives  of  himself,  when  he 
was  hardly  of  age  : 

"  With  pleasure  drugged  he  almost  longed  for  woe, 
And  e'en  for  change  of  scene  would  seek  the  shades 

below." 

The  complaints  of  a  young  man  in  the  bloom 
of  life  and  the  vigor  of  early  hope,  cannot  excite  much 
sympathy.  But  in  his  fullest  maturity  he  still  draws 
the  appalling  picture  of  unalleviated  ennui,  in  language 
that  was  the  mournful  echo  of  his  mind. 

"  'Tis  time  this  heart  should  be  unmoved, 
Since  others  it  has  ceased  to  move ; 
Yet,  though  I  canot  be  beloved, 

Still  let  me  love.''' 


ENNUI.  45 

"  My  days  are  in  the  yellow  leaf; 
The  flowers  and  fruits  of  love  are  gone ; 
The  worm,  the  canker,  and  the  grief 
Are  mine  alone." 

Such  was  the  harassed  state  of  Lord  Byron,  at  the 
epoch  which  seemed  to  promise  him  a  crowded  suc 
cession  of  exciting  sensations.  He  was  struggling 
for  honor  on  the  parent  soil  of  glory;  he  was  sur 
rounded  by  the  stir  and  tumult  of  barbarous  warfare ; 
he  had  the  consciousness,  that  the  eyes  of  the  civilized 
world  were  fixed  upon  his  actions ;  he  professed  enthu 
siasm  in  behalf  of  liberty ;  and  yet  there  was  not  irri 
tation  enough  in  the  new  and  busy  life  of  the  camp,  to 
overcome  his  apathy.  He  only  sought  to  give  away 
his  breath  on  the  field,  and  take  his  rest  in  a  soldier's 
grave. 

The  literature  of  the  hour  is  essentially  transient. 
The  public  mind  seizes  rapidly  every  discovery ;  and 
rightly  claims  the  instant  distribution  of  truth.  But 
with  this  is  connected  a  feverish  excitement  for  novelty. 
The  world,  in  the  earliest  period  of  which  accounts  have 
reached  us,  followed  after  the  newest  strains ;  and  now 
the  voice  of  the  past,  all  musical  as  it  is  with  the  finest 
harmonies  of  human  intelligence,  is  lost  in  the  jangling 
din  of  temporary  discussions.  Philosophy  steals  from 
the  crowd,  and  hides  herself  in  retirement,  awaiting  a 
better  day ;  erudition  is  undervalued,  and  almost  dis 
appears.  It  would  seem,  as  though  the  wise  men  of 


46  ENNUI. 

old  frowned  in  anger  on  the  turbulence  of  the  petty 
passions,  and  withdrew  from  the  contentious  haunts, 
where  wisdom  has  no  votaries,  and  tranquillity  no 
followers.  In  the  days  of  ancient  liberty,  the  public 
places  rung  with  the  nervous  eloquence  of  sublime 
philosophy ;  and  the  streets  of  Athens  offered  nothing 
more  attractive  than  the  keen  discussions,  the  piercing 
satire,  and  the  calm  philanthropy  of  Socrates.  But 
now  it  is  ephemeral  politics  which  rule  the  city  and 
the  country;  the  times  of  deep  reflection,  of  slowly 
maturing  thought,  are  gone  by ;  the  age  of  studious 
learning  is  past,  and  every  thing  is  carried  along  the 
rushing  current  of  public  economy,  or  of  private 
business.  Life  is  divided  between  excited  passions 
and  morbid  indifference. 

And  is  this  current  so  strong,  that  it  cannot  be 
resisted  ?  Can  we  never  separate  ourselves  from  the 
throng,  and  with  dispassionate  coolness,  watch  the 
various  emotions  and  motives,  by  which  society  is 
swayed  ? 

The  moralists,  who  utter  their  oracles  in  the  com 
monplace  complaints  of  a  heathenish  discontent,  tell  us, 
that  we  are  born  but  to  pursue,  and  pursue  but  to  be  de 
ceived.  They  say  that  man  in  his  eagerness  for  earthly 
honors,  is  like  the  child  that  chases  the  gaudy  insect ; 
the  pursuit  idle ;  the  object  worthless.  They  tell  us, 
that  it  is  but  an  illusive  star,  which  beams  from  the 
summit  of  the  distant  hill ;  advance,  and  its  light  re- 


ENNUI.  47 

cedes ;  ascend,  and  a  wider  space  is  yet  to  be  traversed, 
and  a  higher  hill  is  seen  beyond.  And  they  tell  us, 
that  this  is  vanity.  But  how  poorly  have  they  studied 
the  secrets  of  the  human  breast !  How  imperfectly  do 
they  understand  the  feebleness  and  the  strength  of 
man's  fortitude  !  If  glory  still  rests  on  the  remotest  hill, 
if  the  distant  sky  is  still  invested  with  the  delicate  hues 
of  promise,  pursuit  remains  a  pleasure ;  and  the  pilgrim, 
ever  light-hearted,  passes  heedlessly  over  each  rugged 
barrier.  But  suppose  the  alluring  star  to  be  blotted 
out ;  the  lustre  of  the  horizon  to  have  faded  into  the 
shades  of  a  cloudy  evening;  the  pursuit  to  be  now 
without  an  object ;  and  the  blood  which  hope  had  sent 
merrily  through  the  veins,  to  curdle  round  the  despond 
ing  heart.  Then  it  is,  that  the  springs  of  joy  are  poi 
soned  by  the  demons  of  listlessness. 

The  scholar  and  the  Christian  have  guarantees 
against  despair.  The  desire  for  intelligence  is  never 
satisfied  but  with  the  attainment  of  that  wisdom  which 
passes  all  understanding ;  and  the  mind  discerning  the 
bright  lineaments  of  its  perfect  exemplar,  can  set  no 
limits  to  the  sacred  passion,  which  recognises  the  con 
nection  of  the  human  with  the  divine,  and  places 
before  itself  a  boundless  career  of  advancement.  But 
it  is  not  with  these  high  questions  that  we  are  at  pres 
ent  engaged.  We  have  thrown  open  the  book  of 
human  life ;  we  are  to  read  there  of  this  world  and 
its  littleness,  of  the  springs  of  present  action,  of  the 
relief  of  present  restlessness. 


48  ENNUI. 

We  have  said,  that  the  pursuit  of  a  noble  object  is 
in  itself  a  pleasure.  It  is  to  the  mind  which  shuns  the 
forming  a  definite  design,  that  the  universe  seems  de 
ficient  in  the  means  of  happiness,  and  existence  becomes 
a  prey  to  the  fiend  of  ennui. 

Let  us  analyze  this  sensation  more  accurately.  Let 
us  fix  with  exactness  the  true  signification  of  ENNUI. 
Let  us  see  if  it  be  widely  diffused.  Let  us  ascertain 
the  limits  of  its  influence.  Perhaps  the  investigation 
may  lead  us  to  a  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  our 
nature. 

n. 

Ennui  is  the  desire  of  activity  without  the  fit  means 
of  gratifying  the  desire.  It  presupposes  an  acknowl 
edgment  of  exertion  as  a  duty,  and  a  consciousness  of 
the  possession  of  powers  suited  to  making  an  exertion. 
It  is  itself  a  state  of  idleness,  yet  of  disquiet ;  a  discon 
tented  inertness ;  an  indeterminate  craving  and  cease 
less  mobility,  without  any  commensurate  purpose. 
Wherever  a^  course  of  conduct  is  the  result  of  cheerful 
efforts  to  gain  a  livelihood,  of  a  passion  for  intelligence, 
a  zeal  for  glory,  or  to  sum  up  a  great  variety  of  theories 
in  one,  of  a  just  and  enlightened  self-love,  there  no  ves 
tige  of  ennui  can  be  found.  But  should  the  primary 
motives  of  human  effort  fail,  should  the  mind  become 
a  prey  to  listlessness  and  gnaw  upon  itself,  all  its  de 
vices  to  escape  from  this  self-destructive  process,  are  to 


ENNUI.  49 

be  ascribed  to  the  presence  of  ennui.  The  most  ener 
getic  of  our  race,  in  the  very  crisis  of  their  career,  if  per 
chance  they  are  compelled  to  hesitate  in  the  choice  of 
their  measures,  and  must  wait  fresh  tidings  before 
rushing  to  the  field  of  action,  may  suffer  from  its  tor 
ments  during  the  hours  of  expectation,  which  alike 
refuse  to  be  filled  up  or  to  pass  away.  Industry  itself 
may  tire  of  its  task ;  and  its  longings  for  relief  and 
change  may  bring  with  it  disgust  at  its  routine  and  a 
sense  of  weariness  that  can  yet  find  no  rest.  Even  the 
most  indefatigable  zealot,  on  attaining  the  result  of  his 
long,  and  hearty,  and  well  directed  efforts,  may  at  the 
very  moment  of  perfect  success  give  way  to  the  senti 
ment  of  satiety  or  of  lassitude,  and  suffer  the  pain  of 
discovering  that  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit, 
and  that  there  is  no  profit  under  the  sun. 

It  is  ennui  that  stupefies  the  dull  preacher,  who 
yawns  over  his  weekly  office  and  reads  a  lifeless  sermon 
of  which  "  the  saw  "  puts  the  sinner  to  sleep.  Often  in 
the  endless  repetitions  of  the  lawyer  you  may  plainly 
see  how  he  loathes 

"  To  drudge  for  the  dregs  of  men, 
And  scrawl  strange  words  with  the  barbarous  pen." 

The  life  of  Napoleon,  in  the  very  moment  of 
most  imminent  danger,  presents  a  marvellous  instance 
of  ennui.  While  the  allies  were  collecting  around  him 
in  their  utmost  strength,  he  was  himself  wavering  in 
his  purposes,  and  reluctant  to  decide  on  the  retreat  to 
4 


50  ENNUI. 

Leipsic.  An  eye-witness  relates,  "  I  have  seen  him  at 
that  time  seated  on  a  sofa,  beside  a  table  on  which  lay 
his  charts,  totally  unemployed,  unless  in  scribbling  me 
chanically  large  letters  on  a  sheet  of  white  paper."  So 
heavily  and  slowly  dragged  the  hours  of  suspense  for 
the  mighty  warrior,  at  a  time,  when,  in  his  own  lan 
guage,  nothing  but  a  thunderbolt  could  have  saved  him. 
Or,  to  take  an  example  from  the  earliest  monument 
of  Grecian  genius.  Achilles,  in  the  pride  of  youth, 
engaged  in  his  favorite  profession  of  arms,  making  his 
way  to  an  immortality  secured  to  him  by  the  voice  of 
his  goddess  mother,  sure  to  gain  the  victory  in  any 
contest,  and  selecting  for  his  reward  the  richest  spoils 
and  the  fairest  maid,  Achilles,  the  heroic  heathen,  was 
fully  and  satisfactorily  employed,  and  according  to  his 
semi-barbarous  notions  of  joy  and  right,  was  happy 
within  his  own  breast,  and  was  happy  in  the  world 
around  him.  When  the  same  youthful  warrior  was  in 
sulted  by  the  leader  under  whose  banners  he  had 
rallied,  when  the  recesses  of  his  tent  were  invaded  and 
his  domestic  peace  disturbed,  his  mind  was  strongly 
agitated  by  love,  anger,  hatred,  the  passion  for  strife, 
and  the  intense  effort  at  forbearance ;  and  though  there 
was  here  room  enough  for  activity,  there  was  nothing 
but  pain  and  misery.  But  when  the  dispute  was  over, 
and  the  pupil  of  the  Centaur,  trained  for  strife,  and  vic 
tory,  and  glory,  withdrew  from  the  army,  and  gave 
himself  up  to  an  inactive  contemplation  of  the  struggle 


ENNUI.  51 

against  Troy,  his  energies  were  absorbed  in  the  morbid 
feeling  of  ennui.  Homer  was  the  truest  painter  of  the 
human  passions.  The  picture  which  he  draws  of 
Achilles,  receiving  the  subsequent  deputation  from  the 
Greeks,  illustrates  our  subject  exactly.  It  was  in  vain 
for  the  hero  to  attempt  to  soothe  his  mind  with  the 
melodies  of  the  lyre;  his  blood  kindled  only  at  the 
music  of  war :  it  was  idle  for  him  to  seek  pleasure  in 
celebrating  the  renown  of  heroes ;  this  was  but  a  vain 
effort  to  quell  the  burning  desire  to  surpass  them  in 
glory.  He  listens  to  the  deputation,  not  tranquilly, 
but  peevishly.  He  charges  them  with  duplicity,  and 
avows  that  he  loathes  their  king  like  the  gates  of  hell. 
He  next  reverts  to  himself:  "The  warrior  has  no 
thanks,"  he  exclaims  in  the  bitterness  of  disappoint 
ment  ;  "  the  coward  and  the  brave  man  are  held  in 
equal  honor."  Nay,  he  goes  further,  and  quarrels  with 
providence  and  fixed  destiny.  "After  all,"  says  he, 
"  the  idler,  and  the  man  of  many  achievements,  each 
must  die."  " To-morrow,"  he  adds,  "my  vessels  shall 
float  on  the  Hellespont."  The  morning  dawned ;  but 
the  ships  of  Achilles  still  lingered  near  the  banks  of  the 
Scamander.  The  notes  of  the  battle  sounded,  and  he 
was  still  in  suspense  between  the  fiery  impulse  for  war 
and  the  haughty  reserve  of  revenge. 

When  Bruce  approached  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  a 
thousand  sentiments  of  pride  rushed  upon  his  mind ; 
he  seemed  to  himself  more  fortunate  and  more  glorious 


52  ENNUI. 

than  any  European  king  or  warrior,  conqueror  or 
traveller,  that  had  ever  attempted  to  penetrate  into  the 
interior  of  Africa.  This  was  a  moment  of  exultation 
and  triumphant  delight.  But  when  he  had  actually 
reached  the  ultimate  object  of  his  research,  he  has  him 
self  recorded  the  emotions  which  were  awakened 
within  him.  At  the  fountain-head  of  the  Nile,  Bruce 
was  almost  a  victim  to  sentimental  ennui. 

In  this  anecdote  of  the  Abyssinian  traveller,  we 
have  an  example  of  the  rapidity  with  which  disgust 
treads  on  the  heels  of  triumph.  We  will  cite  another, 
where  misery  was  followed  and  consummated  by  ennui. 
The  most  eloquent  of  the  Girondists  was  Vergniaud. 
It  was  he  that  in  the  spirit  of  prophecy  compared  the 
French  revolution  to  Saturn,  since  it  was  about  to 
devour  successively  all  its  children,  and  finally  to  estab 
lish  despotism  with  its  attendant  calamities.  The 
rivalship  of  the  Mountain  in  the  Convention,  the  unsuc 
cessful  attack  on  Robespierre,  the  trial  and  condemna 
tion  of  Louis  XVI.,  the  defection  of  Dumourier  and  its 
consequences,  had  roused  the  mind  of  the  fervent  but 
foredoomed  orator  to  the  strongest  efforts  which  the 
consciousness  of  wavering  fortunes  and  the  menace  of 
utter  ruin,  patriotism,  honor,  and  love  of  life,  could  call 
forth.  At  last  came  the  day,  fraught  with  horrors, 
when  the  clamors  of  a  despotic  and  inexorable  mob, 
claimed  of  the  Convention  Vergniaud  and  his  associates, 
the  little  remnant  of  republican  sincerity,  to  be  the  vie- 


ENNUI.  53 

tuns  of  their  fiendish  avidity  for  blood.  Who  will 
doubt,  that  during  that  fearful  session  the  highest  pos 
sible  excitement  called  him  into  the  highest  possible 
activity !  Here  there  was  no  room  for  listlessness,  and 
quite  as  little  for  happiness.  The  guarantees  of  order 
were  failing,  and  friends  were  to  be  buried  under  the 
same  ruins  with  the  remains  of  regular  legislative  au 
thority.  Vergniaud  retired  from  the  scenes  where  the 
foulest  of  the  dogs  of  war  were  howling  for  their  prey, 
and  when  Gregoire  found  him  out  in  his  hiding-place, 
the  republican  orator,  though  robbery  and  massacre 
were  triumphant  in  the  city,  was  discovered  reading 
Tacitus.  Why  ?  Prom  affectation  ?  Surely  not ;  Gre- 
goire's  visit  was  unexpected.  From  cool  philosophy  ? 
Still  less.  The  studies  of  Vergniaud  on  that  day  were 
the  studies  of  a  man  burning  for  action,  and  having 
nothing  before  him  but  the  heavy  weariness  of  idle 
hours  that  seemed  to  lag  forever. 

Ennui  was  the  necromancer  which  conjured  up  the 
ghost  of  Caesar  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Phillippi. 
And  when  Brutus  prematurely  esteemed  the  day  lost, 
he  had  yet  to  wrestle  with  that  unseen  enemy,  and 
enter  on  a  new  contest,  where  he  was  sure  to  be  over 
thrown.  "  Oh  liberty !  What  crimes  are  committed  in 
thy  name,"  cried  Madame  Roland  as  she  passed  to  the 
scaffold  through  intense  and  unmitigated  suffering, 
dignifying  the  scene  by  the  majesty  of  her  own  forti 
tude.  The  Roman  had  no  such  nobleness  of  nature ; 


54  ENNUI. 

"  Oh  virtue  !  thou  art  but  a  name,"  he  exclaimed,  as  he 
resolved  on  suicide.  When  Brutus  dared  to  despair 
of  virtue,  the  atrocious  sentiment  was  dictated,  not  by 
the  spirit  that  had  aspired  to  restore  the  liberties  of  the 
world,  but  by  the  demon  of  ennui,  which  in  an  evil 
hour  had  possessed  itself  of  the  pretended  patriot's 
soul. 

Finally,  to  take  but  one  more  example,  the  timid 
lover,  whose  affections  are  moved,  yet  not  tranquillized, 
who  gazes  with  the  eyes  of  fondness  on  an  object  that 
seems  to  be  of  a  higher  world,  and  admires  as  the  stars 
are  admired,  which  are  acknowledged  to  be  beautiful 
yet  are  never  possessed ;  the  timid  lover  neither  wholly 
doubting,  nor  wholly  hoping;  the  sport  alternately 
of  joy  and  of  sorrow  ;  full  of  thought  and  full  of 
longing ;  feeling  the  sentiment  of  rapture  yield  to  the 
faintness  of  uncertain  hope,  is  half  his  time  a  true  per 
sonification  of  ennui. 


in. 

That  the  activity  of  ennui  is  widely  diffused,  will 
hardly  be  denied  by  any  careful  observer  of  human 
nature.  No  individual  can  conscientiously  claim  to 
have  been  always  and  wholly  free  from  its  temptations, 
except  where  there  has  been  a  life  springing  from  the 
purest  sources,  sanctified  by  the  early  influence  of 
religious  motives,  and  protected  fr<  m  erroneous  judg- 


ENNUI.  55 

ments  by  the  steady  exercise  of  a  healthful  under 
standing.  For  the  rest,  though  few  are  constantly 
afflicted  with  it  as  an  incurable  evil,  there  are  still 
fewer  who  are  not  at  times  made  to  suffer  from  its 
assaults.  It  lays  its  heavy  hand  alike  on  the  man  of 
business  and  the  recluse ;  it  has  its  favorite  haunts  in 
the  city,  but  it  chases  the  aspirant  after  rural  felicity, 
into  the  scenes  of  his  rural  listlessness ;  it  makes  the 
young  melancholy,  and  the  aged  garrulous ;  it  haunts 
the  sailor  and  the  merchant ;  it  appears  to  the  warrior 
and  to  the  statesman ;  it  takes  its  place  in  the  curule 
chair,  and  sits  also  at  the  frugal  board  of  old-fashioned 
simplicity.  You  cannot  flee  from  it ;  you  cannot  hide 
from  it;  it  is  swifter  than  the  birds  of  passage,  and 
swifter  than  the  breezes  that  scatter  clouds.  It  climbs 
the  ship  of  the  restless  who  long  for  the  suns  of  Eu 
rope  ;  it  jumps  up  behind  the  horseman  who  scours 
the  woods  of  Michigan;  it  throws  its  scowling  glances 
on  the  attempt  at  present  enjoyment ;  it  scares  the  epi- 
curian  from  his  voluptuousness,  and  when  the  ascetic 
has  finished  his  vow,  it  compels  him  to  repeat  the  tale 
of  his  beads. 

To  the  prevalence  of  ennui  must  be  traced  the 
craving  for  intense  excitement.  When  life  has  become 
almost  stagnant,  and  the  ordinary  course  of  events 
proves  unable  to  awaken  any  strong  interest,  ennui 
assumes  a  terrific  power,  and  clamors  for  emotion, 
though  that  emotion  is  to  be  purchased  by  scenes  of 


56  ENNUI. 

horror  and  of  crime.  "  What  a  magnificent  entertain 
ment  ! "  said  the  Parisian  mob,  "  how  interesting  a 
spectacle  to  see  a  woman  of  the  wit  and  courage  of 
Madame  Roland  pass  under  the  guillotine ! "  And  the 
sensitive  admirer  of  works  of  fiction  ransacks  the 
shelves  of  a  library  for  novels  of  thrilling  and  "  pain 
ful  "  interest. 

To  the  same  kind  of  restless  vacancy  we  have  to 
ascribe  the  demand  for  the  vehement  declamations  of 
the  tragic  actor,  and  the  splendid  music  of  the  opera ; 
the  cunning  tricks  of  the  village  conjuror,  and  the 
lascivious  pantomime  of  the  city  ballet-dancers;  the 
disgusting  varieties  of  bull-fights,  and  the  murderous 
feats  of  pugilism.  It  has  sometimes  driven  men  to 
indulge  the  locomotive  zeal  of  the  professed  pedes 
trians,  and  sometimes  to  seek  the  perfect  quiescence  of 
the  "pillar  saints." 

The  habits  of  ancient  Rome  illustrate  most  clearly 
the  extent  to  which  the  passion  for  strong  sensations 
may  hurry  the  public  mind  into  extravagances,  and 
repress  every  sentiment  of  sympathy  and  generosity. 
Ambition  itself  is  not  so  reckless  of  human  life  as 
ennui ;  clemency  is  a  favorite  attribute  of  the  former ; 
but  ennui  has  the  tastes  of  a  cannibal,  and  the  sight 
of  human  blood,  shed  for  its  amusement,  makes  it 
greedy  after  a  renewal  of  the  dreadful  indulgence. 
The  shows  of  the  ancient  gladiators  were  attended 
by  an  infinitely  more  numerous  throng  than  is  ever 


ENNUI.  57 

gathered  by  any  modern  spectacle.  The  fondness  for 
murderous  exhibitions  raged  with  such  vehemence, 
that  they  were  at  length  introduced  as  an  attraction 
at  the  banquet,  and  the  guests,  as  they  reclined  at 
table  in  the  luxury  of  physical  ease,  have  been  wet  by 
the  life-blood  of  the  wounded  gladiators. 

Quinetiam  exhilarare  viris  convivia  caede 
Mos  oliin,  et  miscere  epulis  spectacula  dira 
Certantum  ferro,  ssepe  et  super  ipsa  cadentum 
Pocula,  respersis  non  parco  sanguine  mensis. 
Time  would  fail  us  were  we  to  illustrate  the  various 
atrocities  which  attended  these  diversions,  designed  to 
amuse  the  most  refined  population  of  Rome ;  or  even 
to  enumerate  the  various  classifications  in  the  art  of 
murder  on  the  stage.  And  let  it  not  be  supposed,  that 
the  life  of  one  of  these  combatants  was  the  more  safe, 
because  it  depended  on  the  interposition  of  the  Roman 
fair.  The  signals  in  token  of  relenting  clemency,  pro 
ceeded  commonly  from  the  multitude ;  the  more  usual 
signal,  made  by  virgins  and  matrons,  demanded  the 
continuance  of  the  combat  unto  death.  We  call  Titus 
the  delight  of  the  human  race,  and  praise  his  common 
place  puerility,  perdidi  diem,  though  it  was  the  ex 
clamation  of  conceit,  rather  than  of  manliness.  It 
was  this  philanthropist,  this  favorite  of  humanity, 
who  caused  the  vast  Roman  amphitheatre  to  be  erect 
ed,  as  it  were  a  monument  to  all  ages  of  the  barbarous 
civilization  of  the  capital  of  his  empire.  And  as  to  the 


58  ENNUI. 

numbers  who  appeared  on  these  occasions,  was  it  a 
pair?  or  a  score?  We  will  not  ask  after  the  mas 
sacres  commanded  and  consummated  by  a  Tiberius 
or  a  Caligula.  Trajan  was  a  discreet  prince ;  dis 
posed  to  introduce  habits  of  industry.  Yet  he  kept 
up  a  succession  of  games  to  cheat  the  population  of 
Rome  of  ennui,  during  a  hundred  and  twenty-three 
days,  in  which  time  ten  thousand  gladiators  were 
decked  for  sacrifice. 

Thus  the  intenseness  of  this  passion  is  evident  from 
the  method  of  relief  which  it  required.  We  may  also 
remark,  that  superstition  itself,  interwoven  as  it  is 
with  all  the  fears  and  weaknesses  of  humanity,  sub 
jects  the  human  mind  to  a  bondage  less  severe  and  less 
permanent  than  that  of  the  terrific  craving  after  some 
thing  to  dissipate  the  weariness  of  the  heart.  At 
Rome  the  sacrifices  to  the  heathen  deities  were  abol 
ished  before  the  games  of  the  gladiators  were  sup 
pressed  ;  it  was  less  difficult  to  take  from  the  priests 
their  spoils,  from  the  altars  their  victims,  from  the 
prejudices  of  the  people  their  religious  faith,  than  to 
rescue  from  ennui  the  miserable  wretches  whose  lives 
were  to  be  the  sport  of  the  idle.  The  laws  already 
forbade  offering  the  bull  to  Jove,  when  the  poet  still 
had  to  pray  that  none  might  perish  in  the  city  under 
the  condemnation  of  pleasure, 

Nullus  in  urbe  cadat,  cujus  sit  pcena  voluptas. 


ENNUI.  59 

Philosophy  itself  offers  no  guarantee  against  the 
common  infirmities  of  listlessness.  Many  a  stoic  has 
resisted  the  attacks  of  external  evil  with  an  exemplary 
fortitude,  and  has  yet  failed  in  his  encounter  with 
time.  Strange,  indeed,  that  time  should  be  an  incum- 
brance  to  a  sage !  Strange  indeed,  that,  when  life  is  so 
short,  and  the  range  of  thought  boundless,  and  time 
the  most  precious  of  gifts,  dealt  out  to  us  in  successive 
moments,  a  possession  which  is  most  coveted,  and  can 
the  least  be  hoarded,  winch  comes,  but  never  returns, 
which  departs  as  soon  as  given,  and  is  lost  even  in 
the  receiving, — strange,  indeed,  that  such  a  grant,  so 
acceptable,  so  fleeting,  and  so  irrevocable,  should  ever 
press  severely  upon  a  philosopher ! 

'And  yet  wisdom  is  no  security  against  ennui. 
The  man  who  made  Europe  ring  with  his  eloquence, 
and  largely  contributed  to  the  spirit  of  republican 
enthusiasm,  wasted  away  for  months  in  a  state  of  the 
most  foolish  torpidity,  under  the  idea  that  he  was 
dying  of  a  polypus  at  his  heart.  Nay,  this  specu- 
latist,  who  presumed  to  believe  himself  skilled  in  the 
ways  of  man  and  an  adept  in  those  of  women,  who 
dared  to  expound  religion  and  proposed  to  reform  Chris 
tianity,  who  committed  and  confessed  the  meanest 
actions,  and  yet,  as  if  in  the  presence  of  the  Supreme 
Arbiter  of  life  and  before  the  tribunal  of  Eternal 
Justice,  arrogated  to  himself  an  equality  with  the 
purest  in  the  innumerable  crowd  of  the  immortal — 


60  ENNUI. 

he,  the  proud  one,  would  so  far  yield  to  ennui,  as 
to  put  the  final  and  eternal  welfare  of  his  soul  at 
issue  on  the  throw  of  a  stone.  "  Je  men  vais"  he 
says  to  himself,  "je  men  vais  Jeter  cette  pierre  contre 
I'arbre  qui  est  vis-a-vis  de  moi :  si  je  le  touc/te,  signe 
de  salut ;  si  je  la  manque,  signe  de  damnation" 

But  Jean  Jacques  passes  for  a  madman.  The 
temperate  Spinoza,  being  cut  off  from  active  life  and 
from  social  love,  necessarily  encountered  a  void  within 
himself.  It  was  his  favorite  resource  to  catch  spiders 
and  teach  them  to  fight ;  and  when  he  had  so  far  made 
himself  master  of  the  nature  of  these  animals,  that  he 
could  get  them  as  angry  as  game  cocks,  he  would,  all 
thin  and  feeble  as  he  was,  break  out  into  a  roar  of 
laughter,  and  chuckle  to  see  his  champions  engage,  as 
if  they,  too,  were  fighting  for  honor. 

Poor  Spinoza !  It  may  indeed  be  questioned, 
whether  his  whole  philosophy  was  not  a  sort  of  pas 
time  with  him.  It  may  be,  that  he  was  ingenious 
because  he  could  not  be  quiet,  and  wrote  from  a 
want  of  something  to  do.  At  any  rate  it  has  fared 
strangely  with  his  works.  The  world  had  well-nigh 
become  persuaded,  that  Spinoza  was  but  a  name  for 
the  most  desolating  form  of  atheism,  and  next  he 
is  canonized.  The  skeptic  Bayle  heaps  ridicule  upon 
the  great  Jewish  dialectician;  the  dreamer  Novalis, 
who  himself  died  of  ennui,  revered  him  as  a  model  of 
sanctity. 


ENNUI.  61 

J3ut  we  have  a  stronger  example  than  either  of 
these.  The  very  philosopher,  who  first  declared  ex 
perience  to  be  the  basis  of  knowledge,  and  found 
his  way  to  truth  through  the  safe  places  of  observation, 
gives  in  his  own  character  some  evidences  of  partici 
pation  in  the  common  infirmity.  He  said  very  truly, 
that  there  is  a  foolish  corner  even  in  the  brain  of  the 
sage.  Yet  if  there  has  ever  appeared  on  earth  a  man 
possessed  of  reason  in  its  highest  perfection,  it  was 
Aristotle.  He  had  the  gift  of  seeing  the  forms  of 
things,  undisturbed  by  the  confusing  splendor  of 
then'  hues  ;  his  faculties,  like  the  art  of  sculpture,  rep 
resented  objects  with  the  most  precise  outlines  and 
exact  images ;  but  the  world  in  his  mind  was  a 
colorless  world.  He  understood  and  has  explained 
the  secrets  of  the  human  heart ;  but  he  performs 
his  moral  dissections  with  the  coolness  of  an  anato 
mist,  engaged  in  a  delicate  operation.  The  nicety  of 
his  distinctions,  and  his  deep  insight  into  nature,  are 
displayed  without  passion,  while  his  constant  effort 
after  the  discovery  of  new  truth,  never  for  one  moment 
betrays  him  into  mysticism,  or  tempts  him  to  substitute 
shadows  for  realities.  One  would  think,  that  such  a 
master  of  analysis  was  the  personification  of  self-posses 
sion  ;  that  his  unruffled  mind  would  always  dwell'  in  the 
serene  regions  of  intelligence ;  that  his  step  would  rest 
on  the  firm  ground  of  experience ;  that  his  progress  to 
the  sublime  temple  of  truth  and  of  fame,  would  have 


62  ENNUI. 

been  ever  secure  and  rapid ;  that  happiness  itself  would 
have  blessed  him  in  his  tranquil  devotedness  to  exalted 
pursuits. 

In  the  mouth  of  Pindar,  life  might  be  called  a 
dream,  and  it  would  but  pass  for  the  effusion  of  poetic 
melancholy.  But  when  the  sagacious  philosopher  as 
serts,  that  all  hope  is  but  the  dream  of  waking  man,  the 
solemn  expression  of  discontent  is  but  the  sad  confes 
sion  of  his  own  unsatisfied  curiosity ;  and  nothing  but 
the  wonderful  vigor  of  his  mind  could  have  preserved 
him  from  settled  gloom. 

Again  the  venerable  sage  examined  into  the  sources 
of  happiness.  It  does  not  consist,  he  affirms,  in  volup 
tuous  pleasures,  for  they  are  transient,  brutalizing,  and 
injurious  to  the  mind ;  nor  in  public  honors,  for  they 
depend  on  those  who  bestow  them,  and  it  is  not 
felicity  to  be  the  recipient  of  an  uncertain  bounty ; 
nor  yet  does  happiness  consist  in  riches,  for  the  care 
of  them  is  but  a  toil ;  and  if  they  are  expended,  it  is 
plainly  a  proof,  that  contentment  is  sought  for  in  the 
possession  of  other  things.  In  his  view,  happiness 
consists  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  and  in  the  prac 
tice  of  virtue,  under  the  auspices  of  mind,  and  nature, 
and  fortune.  He  that  is  intelligent,  and  young,  and 
handsome,  and  vigorous,  and  rich,  is  alone  the  happy 
man.  Did  the  world  need  the  sublime  wisdom,  the 
high  endowment  of  the  Stagyrite,  to  teach,  that  nei 
ther  the  poor,  nor  the  dull,  nor  the  aged,  nor  the  sick, 


ENNUI.  63 

can  share  in  the  highest  blessings  of  mortal  being? 
When  it  is  remembered  that  Aristotle  was  favored 
above  all  his  contemporaries  in  intellectual  gifts,  we 
invite  the  reader  to  draw  an  inference  as  to  the  state  of 
his  mind,  which  still  demanded  the  beauties  of  per 
sonal  attractions,  and  the  lavish  liberality  of  fortune. 

When  asked  what  is  the  most  transient  of  fleeting 
things,  the  philosopher  made  but  a  harsh  answer,  in 
naming  "gratitude;"  but  his  mind  must  have  been 
sadly  a  prey  to  ennui,  when  he  could  exclaim,  "  My 
friends  !  there  are  no  friends." 

He  was  not  willing  to  sit  or  stand  still,  when  he 
gave  lessons  in  moral  science ;  but  walked  to  and  fro 
in  constant  restlessness.  Indeed,  if  tradition  reports 
rightly,  he  did  not  wait  the  will  of  Heaven  for  his 
release  from  weariness,  but  in  spite  of  all  his  sublime 
teachings  and  all  his  expansive  genius,  he  was  content 
to  die  as  the  fool  dieth. 

But  ennui  kills  others  beside  philosophers.  It  is 
not  without  example,  that  men  have  died  by  their  own 
hand,  because  they  have  attained  their  utmost  wishes. 
The  man  of  business,  finding  himself  possessed  of  a 
sufficient  fortune,  retires  from  his  wonted  employments ; 
but  the  habit  of  action  remains,  and  becomes  a  power 
of  terrific  force.  .  In  such  cases,  the  sufferer  whiles 
away  listless  hours  of  intense  suffering;  the  mind 
preys  upon  itself,  and  sometimes  life  ebbs  of  itself, 
sometimes  suicide  is  committed. 


64  ENNUI. 

Saul  went  out  to  find  his  father's  asses.  Pleased 
with  the  humble  employment  he  made  search  with  a 
light  heart  and  an  honest  one.  But,  seeking  asses,  he 
found  a  kingdom ;  and  tranquillity  fled  when  posses 
sion  was  complete.  The  reproofs  of  conscience  and 
discontent  with  the  world  produced  in  him  a  morbid 
melancholy,  and  pain  itself  would  have  been  to  him 
a  welcome  refuge  from  ennui. 

We  detect  the  same  subtle  spirit  at  work  in  the 
slanders  in  which  gossips  find  relief.  Truth  is  not  ex 
citing  enough  to  those  who  depend  on  the  characters 
and  lives  of  their  neighbors  for  all  their  amusement ; 
and  if  a  story  is  told  of  more  than  common  interest, 
ennui  is  sure  to  have  its  joy  in  adding  embellishments. 
If  hours  did  not  hang  heavy,  what  would  become  of 
scandal  ?  Time,  the  common  enemy,  must  be  passed, 
as  the  phrase  is,  and  the  phrase  bears  its  own  com 
mentary  ;  and  since  the  days  of  gladiators  are  gone  by, 
what  better  substitute  than  blackening  the  reputation 
of  the  living?  To  the  pusillanimous  and  the  idle, 
scandal  is  the  condiment  of  life ;  and  while  backbiting 
furnishes  their  entertainment  abroad,  domestic  quarrel 
ling  fills  up  the  leisure  hours  at  home.  It  is  a  pretty 
general  rule,  that  the  medisante  is  a  termagant  in  her 
household ;  and,  as  for  our  own  sex,  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  the  evil  tongue  belongs  to  a  disappointed  man. 

Fashion,  also,  in  its  excess,  is  but  a  relief  against 
ennui ;  and  it  is  strong  evidence  of  the  universal  preva- 


ENNUI.  65 

lence  of  listlessness,  that  a  change  in  dress  at  Paris 
can,  within  a  few  months,  be  imitated  in  St.  Louis. 
But  not  ennui,  a  milder  influence  sways  the  conduct 
of  the  young  and  the  fair.  The  latent  consciousness  of 
beauty,  the  charm  of  an  existence  that  is  opening  in 
the  fulness  of  its  attractions,  the  becoming  loveliness 
of  innocence  and  youth,  the  simple  cheerfulness  of  in 
experience,  lead  them  to  find  delight  in  a  modest  and 
graceful  display.  The  unrivalled  Broadway  is  not 
without  its  loungers ;  yet  of  these  the  young  and  the 
gay  are  not  discontented  ones.  In  the  strength  of 
their  own  charms,  they,  like  the  patriot  statesman, 
neither  shun  nor  yet  court  admiration ;  and  as  they 
move  along  the  brilliant  street,  half  coveting  half  re 
fusing  attention, 
"  They  feel  that  they  are  happier  than  they  know." 

From  Broadway  we  pass  to  the  crowded  haunts  of 
business.  Is  ennui  found  there  ?  Do  the  money 
changers  grow  weary  of  profits  ?  Is  business  so  dull 
that  bankers  are  without  employment?  Have  the 
underwriters  nothing  at  sea  to  be  anxious  about  ?  Do 
the  insurers  on  life  forget  to  exhort  the  holders  of  its 
policies  to  temperance  and  exercise?  These  are  all 
too  profoundly  engaged  and  too  little  romantic,  to 
be  moved  by  sentimental  repinings.  But  there  are 
those,  who  plunge  headlong  into  affairs  from  the  rest 
lessness  of  their  nature,  and  who  hurry  into  bold  enter- 
5 


66  ENNUI. 

prises,  because  they  cannot  endure  to  be  idle.  Business, 
like  poetry,  requires  a  tranquil  mind;  but  there  are 
those,  who  venture  upon  its  tide,  under  the  impulse  of 
ennui.  How  shall  the  young  and  haughty  heirs  of 
large  fortunes  rid  themselves  of  their  time,  and  acquit 
themselves  in  the  eye  of  the  public  of  their  imagined 
responsibilities  ?  One  writes  a  tale  for  the  Souvenirs, 
another  speculates  in  stocks.  The  former  is  laughed 
at,  yet  hoards  an  estate ;  the  latter  is  food  for  hungry- 
sharks.  Then  comes  bankruptcy ;  and  sober  thought 
repels  the  fiend  that  had  been  making  a  waste  of  life ; 
or  the  same  passion  drives  its  possessor  to  become  a 
busy-body  and  zealot  in  the  current  excitement  of  the 
times  ;  or  absolute  despair,  ennui  in  its  intensity,  leads 
to  insanity. 

For  the  mad-house,  too,  as. well  as  the  debtor's 
jail,  is  recruited  by  the  same  blighting  power,  and 
nature  recovers  from  languid  apathy  by  the  excitement 
of  frenzy.  Or  the  thought  of  suicide  creeps  in  ;  fancy 
revels  in  the  contemplation  of  the  grave,  and  covets 
the  aspect  of  death  as  the  face  of  a  familiar  friend. 
The  mind  invests  itself  in  the  sombre  shades  of  a  mel 
ancholy  longing  after  eternal  rest — a  longing  which  is 
sometimes  connected  with  unqualified  disbelief,  and 
sometimes  Associated  with  an  undefined  desire  of  a 
purely  spiritual  existence. 


ENNUI.  67 

IV. 

We  might  multiply  examples  of  the  very  extensive 
prevalence  of  that  unhappy  languor  of  which  we  are 
treating.  Let  us  aim  rather  at  observing  the  limit  of 
its  power. 

It  was  a  mistaken  philosophy,  which  believed  in 
ennui  as  an  evidence  and  a  means  of  human  perfec 
tibility.  The  only  exertions  which  it  is  capable  of  pro 
ducing,  are  of  a  subordinate  character.  It  may  give 
to  passion  a  fearful  intensity,  consequent  on  a  state  of 
moral  disease ;  but  human  virtue  must  be  the  result  of 
far  higher  causes.  The  exercise  of  principle,  the  gene 
rous  force  of  purified  emotions,  cheerful  desire,  and 
willing  industry,  are  the  parents  of  real  greatness.  If 
we  look  through  the  various  departments  of  public  and 
of  intellectual  action,  we  shall  find  the  mark  of  inferior 
ity  upon  every  tlung  which  has  sprung  from  ennui.  In 
the  mechanic  arts  it  may  contrive  a  balloon,  but  never 
could  invent  a  steamboat.  In  philosophy  it  might 
beget  the  follies  of  Cynic  oddity,  but  not  the  sublime 
lessons  of  Pythagoras.  In  religion,  it  stumbles  at  a 
thousand  knotty  points  in  metaphysical  theology,  but 
it  never  led  the  soul  to  intercourse  with  Heaven,  or  to 
the  contemplation  of  divine  truth. 

The  celebrated  son  of  Philip,  "  Macedonia's  mad 
man,"  was  of  exalted  genius ;  and  political  wisdom  had 
its  share  in  his  career.  Ennui  could  never  have  pro- 


68  ENNUI. 

duced  him ;  but  it  may  well  put  in  its  claim  to  the 
Swede.  Or  let  us  look  rather  for  a  conqueror,  who 
dreamed  that  he  had  genius  to  rival  Achilles,  and  yet 
never  formed  a  settled  plan  of  action.  The  famous 
king  of  Epirus  has  seemed  to  be  an  historical  puzzle, 
so  uncertain  was  his  purpose,  so  wavering  his  character. 
Will  you  know  the  whole  truth  about  him  ?  Pyrrhus 
was  an  ennuye. 

In  verse,-  ennui  may  produce  effusions  from  "  per 
sons  of  quality,"  devoid  of  wit  and  sense ;  but  not  the 
satire  of  Pope.  When  a  poet  writes  a  song  for  hire, 
or  solely  to  be  sung  to  some  favorite  air,  it  is  more  than 
probable  his  verses  will  be  lifeless,  and  his  meaning 
doubtful.  Thus,  for  example, — 

"  The  smiles  of  joy,  the  tears  of  woe, 

Deceitful  shine,  deceitful  flow." 
This  is  sheer  nonsense,  the  evidence  of  a  vacant  mind. 
Joy  smiles  in  good  earnest,  and  many  an  aching  heart 
knows  too  well  the  deep  truth  of  distress. 

It  is  dangerous  for  a  man  of  superior  ability  to  find 
himself  thrown  upon  the  world  without  some  regular 
employment,  The  restlessness  inherent  in  genius  being 
thus  left  undirected  by  any  permanent  influence,  frames 
for  itself  occupations  out  of  accidents.  Even  moral  in 
tegrity  sometimes  falls  a  prey  to  this  want  of  fixed 
pursuits.  Genius,  so  left  without  guidance,  attains  no 
noble  ends ;  but  resembles  rather  a  copious  spring,  con- 


ENNUI.  69 

veyed  in  a  decaying  aqueduct ;  where  the  waters  contin 
ually  waste  away  through  the  frequent  crevices.  The  law 
of  nature  is  here,  as  elsewhere,  binding ;  and  no  pow 
erful  results  ever  ensue  from  the  trivial  exercise  of  high 
endowments.  The  finest  mind,  when  destitute  of  a 
fixed  purpose,  passes  away  without  leaving  permanent 
traces  of  its  existence. 

These  remarks  apply  perhaps  in  some  measure 
even  to  Leibnitz,  whose  intelligence  and  mental  ac 
tivity  were  the  wonder  of  his  age.  He  attained 
celebrity,  but  hardly  a  contented  spirit ;  at  times  he 
descended  to  the  consideration  of  magnitudes  infinitely 
small,  and  at  times  rose  to  the  belief  that  he  heard  the 
universal  harmony  of  nature ;  for  years  he  was  devoted 
to  illustrating  the  antiquities  of  the  family  of  a  petty 
prince ;  and  then  again  he  assumed  the  sublime  office 
of  defending  the  perfections  of  Providence.  Yet  with 
this  variety  of  pursuit,  the  great  philosopher  was  hardly 
to  be  called  a  happy  man ;  and  it  is  enough  to  fill  us 
with  melancholy  to  find,  that  the  very  theologian  who 
would  have  proved  this  to  be  absolutely  the  best  of 
all  possible  worlds,  died  of  chagrin.  Our  subject 
is  more  fully  illustrated  in  the  case  of  a  less  gifted, 
though  a  notorious  man,  the  famed  Lord  Bolingbroke. 
His  talents  as  a  writer  have  secured  him  a  distinguished 
place  in  the  literature  of  England ;  and  his  political  ser 
vices,  during  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  have  rendered 
him  illustrious  in  English  history.  But  though  he  was 


70  ENNUI. 

possessed  of  wit,  eloquence,  family,  wealth,  and  oppor 
tunity,  he  never  displayed  true  dignity  of  character,  or 
real  greatness  of  soul.  He  appeared  to  have  no  fixed 
principles  of  action ;  and  to  have  loved  contest  more 
than  victory.  Wherever  there  was  strife,  there  you 
'might  surely  expect  to  meet  St.  John ;  and  his  public 
career  almost  justifies  the  inference,  that  after  a  defeat 
apostasy  seemed  to  him  a  moderate  price  for  permis 
sion  to  appear  again  in  the  lists.  But  as  he  always 
coveted  power  with  an  insatiable  avidity,  he  never  could 
rest  long  enough  to  acquire  it.  On  the  stormy  sea  of 
public  life,  he  was  for  ever  struggling  to  be  on  the  top 
most  wave ;  but  the  waves  receded  as  fast  as  he  ad 
vanced;  and  fate  seemed  to  have  destined  him  to 
fruitless  efforts  and  as  fruitless  changes. 

In  early  life  he  sought  distinction  by  his  debauch 
eries  ;  and  succeeded  in  becoming  the  most  daring 
profligate  in  London.  Tired  of  the  excess  of  dissipa 
tion,  he  attempted  the  career  of  politics,  and  found  his 
way  into  Parliament  under  the  auspices  of  the  whigs. 
When  politics  failed,  he  put  on  the  mask  of  a  metaphy 
sician.  Weary  of  that  costume,  he  next  attempted  to 
play  the  farmer.  Dissatisfied  with  farming,  he  wrote 
political  pamphlets.  Still  discontented,  he  strove  to 
undermine  the  basis  of  the  religious  faith  of  his 
country. 

He  began  public  life  as  a  whig ;  but  as  the  tones 
were  in  the  ascendant,  he  rapidly  ripened  into  a  tory ; 


ENNUI.  71 

he  ended  his  political  career  by  deserting  the  tories, 
and  avowing  the  doctrines  of  stanch  and  uncom 
promising  whigs.  He  tried  libertinism,  married  life, 
politics,  power,  exile,  restoration,  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  the  House  of  Lords,  the  city,  the  country, 
foreign  travel,  study,  authorship,  metaphysics,  infi 
delity,  farming,  treason,  submission,  dereliction, — but 
ennui  held  him  with  a  firm  grasp  all  the  while,  and  it 
was  only  in  the  grave  that  he  ceased  from  troubling. 

To  an  observer  who  peruses  his  writings  with  this 
view  of  his  character,  many  of  his  expressions  of  wise 
indifference  and  calm  resignation,  have  even  a  ludicrous 
aspect.  The  truth  breaks  forth  from  all  his  attempts 
at  disguise.  The  philosopher's  robes  could  not  hide 
the  stately  wrecks  of  his  political  passions.  Round  the 
base  of  Vesuvius,  the  lava  of  former  eruptions  has  so 
entirely  resolved  itself  into  soil,  that  vineyards  thrive 
on  the  black  ruins  of  the  volcano ;  and  the  ancient  de 
vastation  could  hardly  be  recognised,  except  for  an 
occasional  dark  mass,  which,  not  yet  decomposed, 
frowns  here  and  there  over  the  surrounding  fertility. 
Something  like  this  was  true  of  St.  John ;  he  believed 
his  ambition  extinct,  and  attempted  to  gather  round 
its  ruins  all  the  beauties  and  splendor  of  contented 
wisdom ;  but  his  nature  was  still  ungovernably  fierce ; 
and  to  the  last,  his  passions  lowered  angrily  on  the 
quiet  scenes  of  his  literary  retirement. 

There  is  no  clue  to  his  career,  except  in  supposing 


72  ENNUI. 

him  to  have  been  under  the  influence  of  ennui,  which 
was  perpetually  terrifying  him  into  the  grossest  contra 
dictions.  He  could  not  be  said  to  have  had  any  prin 
ciples,  or  to  have  belonged  to  any  party ;  and  wherever 
he  gave  in  his  adhesion,  he  was  sure  to  become  utterly 
faithless.  He  was  not  less  false  to  the  Pretender  than 
to  the  King,  to  Ormond  than  to  Walpole.  He  was 
false  to  the  tories  and  false  to  the  whigs ;  he  was  false 
to  his  country,  for  he  attempted  to  involve  her  in  civil 
war ;  and  false  to  his  God,  for  he  combated  religion. 
He  was  not  swayed  by  a  passion  for  glory,  for  he  did 
not  pursue  it  steadily ;  nor  by  a  passion  for  power, 
for  he  quarrelled  with  the  only  man  by  whose  aid  he 
could  have  maintained  it.  He  was  rather  driven  to 
and  fro  by  a  wild  restlessness,  which  led  him  into  gross 
contradictions  "  for  his  sins.  "  Nor  was  his  falsehood 
without  its  punishment.  What  could  be  more  pitifully 
degrading,  than  for  one  who  had  been  a  successful 
British  minister  of  state,  and  had  displayed  in  the  face 
of  Europe  his  capacity  for  business  and  his  powers  of 
eloquence,  to  accept  a  seat  in  the  Pretender's  cabinet, 
where  pimps  and  prostitutes  were  the  prime  agents 
and  counsellors  ? 

There  exists  a  very  pleasant  letter  from  Pope, 
giving  an  account  of  Bolingbroke's  rural  occupations, 
during  his  country  life  in  England,  after  the  reversal 
of  his  attainder.  He  insisted  on  being  a  farmer ;  and 
to  prove  himself  so,  hired  a  painter  to  fill  the  wans  of 


ENNUI.  73 

his  countryhouse  with  rude  pictures  of  the  implements 
of  husbandry.  The  poet  describes  him  standing  be 
tween  two  haycocks,  watching  the  clouds  with  all  the 
apparent  anxiety  of  a  husbandman ;  but  to  us  it  seems 
that  his  mind  was  at  that  time  no  more  in  the  skies, 
than  when  he  quoted  Anaxagoras,  and  declared  heaven 
to  be  the  wise  man's  home.  His  heart  clung  to  earth, 
and  to  earthly  strife ;  and  his  uneasiness  must  at  last 
have  become  deplorably  wretched,  since  he  could  con 
sent  to  leave  a  piece  of  patchwork,  made  up  of  the 
shreds  of  other  men's  skepticism,  as  his  especial  legacy 
to  posterity. 

Thus  we  have  endeavored  to  explain  the  nature  of 
that  apathy  which  is  worse  than  positive  pain,  and 
which  impels  to  greater  madness  than  the  fiercest 
passions, — which  kings  and  sages  have  not  been  able 
to  resist,  nor  wealth  nor  pleasures  to  subdue.  We 
have  described  ennui  as  a  power  for  evil  rather  than 
for  good;  and  we  infer,  that  it  was  an  erroneous 
theory  which  classed  it  among  the  causes  of  human 
superiority,  and  the  means  of  human  improvement. 
It  is  the  curse  pronounced  upon  voluptuous  indolence 
and  on  excessive  passion ;  on  those  who  decline  active 
exertion,  and  thus  throw  away  the  privileges  of  exist 
ence  ;  and  on  those  who  live  a  feverish  life,  in  the  con 
stant  frenzy  of  stimulated  desires.  There  is  but  one 
cure  for  it,  and  that  is  found  in  moderation ;  the  exer 
cise  of  the  human  faculties  in  their  natural  and  health- 


74  ENNUI. 

ful  state ;  the  quiet  performance  of  duty,  in  meek  sub 
mission  to  the  controlling  Providence,  -which  has  set 
bounds  to  our  achievements  in  setting  limits  to  our 
powers.  Briefly :  our  ability  is  limited  by  Heaven — 
our  desires  are  unhmited,  except  by  ourselves — ennui 
can  be  avoided  only  by  conforming  the  passions  of  the 
human  breast  to  the  conditions  of  human  existence. 


THE  RULING  PASSION  IN  DEATH. 

i. 

"  LIFE,"  says  Sir  William  Temple,  "  is  like  wine ; 
he,  who  would  drink  it  pure,  must  not  drain  it  to  the 
dregs."  "  I  do  not  wish,"  Byron  would  say,  "  to  live 
to  become  old."  The  expression  of  the  ancient  poet;, 
"  that  to  die  young  is  a  boon  of  heaven  to  its  favor 
ites,"  was  repeatedly  quoted  by  him  with  approbation. 
The  certainty  of  a  speedy  release  he  would  call  the  only 
relief  against  burdens,  which  could  not  be  borne,  were 
they  not  of  very  limited  duration. 

But  the  general  sentiment  of  mankind  declares 
length  of  days  to  be  desirable.  After  an  active  and 
successful  career,  the  repose  of  decline  is  serene  and 
cheerful.  By  common  consent  grey  hairs  are  a  crown 
of  glory;  the  only  object  of  respect  that  can  never 
excite  envy.  The  hour  of  evening  is  not  necessarily 
overcast ;  and  the  aged  man,  exchanging  the  pursuits 
of  ambition  for  the  quiet  of  observation,  the  strife  of 
public  discussion  for  the  diffuse  but  instructive  Ian- 


76  RULING   PASSION    IN   DEATH. 

guage  of  experience,  passes  to  the  grave  amidst  grate 
ful  recollections  and  the  tranquil  enjoyment  of  satisfied 
desires. 

The  happy,  it  is  agreed  by  all,  are  afraid  to  con 
template  their  end ;  the  unhappy,  it  has  been  said,  look 
forward  to  it  as  to  a  release  from  suffering.  "  I  think 
of  death  often,"  said  a  distinguished  but  dissatisfied 
man ;  "  and  I  view  it  as  a  refuge.  There  is  something 
calm  and  soothing  to  me  hi  the  thought ;  and  the  only 
time  that  I  feel  repugnance  to  it,  is  on  a  fine  day,  in 
solitude,  in  a  beautiful  country,  when  all  nature  seems 
rejoicing  in  light  and  life." 

This  is  the  language  of  self-delusion.  Numerous 
as  may  be  the  causes  for  disgust  with  life,  its  close  is 
never  contemplated  with  carelessness.  Religion  may 
elevate  the  soul  to  a  sublime  reliance  on  a  future  exist 
ence  ;  nothing  else  can  do  it.  The  love  of  honor  may 
brave  danger ;  the  passion  of  melancholy  may  indulge 
an  aversion  to  continued  being ;  philosophy  may  take 
its  last  rest  with  composure ;  the  sense  of  shame  may 
conduct  to  fortitude ;  yet  they  who  would  disregard 
the  grave,  must  turn  then*  thoughts  from  the  consider 
ation  of  its  terrors.  It  is  an  impulse  of  nature  to  strive 
to  preserve  our  being ;  and  the  longing  cannot  be 
eradicated.  The  mind  may  shun  the  contemplation 
of  horrors ;  it  may  fortify  itself  by  refusing  to  observe 
the  nearness  or  the  extent  of  the  impending  evil ;  but 
the  instinct  of  life  is  stubborn  ;  and  he,  who  looks  di- 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  77 

rectly  at  its  termination  and  professes  indifference,  is  a 
hypocrite,  or  is  self-deceived.  He  that  calls  boldly 
upon  death,  is  sure  to  be  dismayed  on  finding  him 
near.  The  oldest  are  never  so  old,  but  they  desire  life 
for  one  day  longer ;  .the  child  looks  to  its  parent,  as  if 
to  discern  a  glimpse  of  hope ;  even  the  infant,  as  it 
exhales  its  breath,  springs  from  its  pillow  to  meet  its 
mother,  as  if  there  were  help  where  there  is  love. 

There  is  a  story  told  of  one  of  the  favorite  marshals 
of  Napoleon,  who,  in  a  battle  in  the  south  of  Germany, 
was  struck  by  a  cannon  ball,  and  so  severely  wounded, 
that  there  was  no  possibility  of  a  respite.  Summoning 
the  surgeon,  he  ordered  his  wounds  to  be  dressed ;  and, 
when  aid  was  declared  to  be  unavailing,  the  dying  officer 
clamorously  demanded  that  Napoleon  should  be  sent 
for,  as  one  who  had  power  to  stop  the  effusion  of 
blood,  and  awe  nature  itself  into  submission.  Life 
expired  amidst  maledictions  and  threats  heaped  upon 
the  innocent  surgeon.  This  foolish  frenzy  may  have 
appeared  like  blasphemy ;  it  was  but  the  uncontrolled 
outbreak  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  in  a  rough 
and  undisciplined  mind. 

Even  in  men  of  strong  religious  convictions,  the 
end  is  not  always  met  with  serenity ;  and  the  preacher 
and  philosopher  sometimes  express  an  apprehension, 
which  cannot  be  pacified.  The  celebrated  British 
moralist,  Samuel  Johnson,  was  the  instructor  of  his 
age ;  his  works  are  full  of  the  austere  lessons  of 


78  RULING    PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

reflecting  wisdom.  It  might  have  been  supposed, 
that  religion  would  have  reconciled  him.  to  the  decree 
of  Providence ;  that  philosophy  would  have  taught  him 
to  acquiesce  in  a  necessary  issue ;  that  science  would 
have  inspired  him  with  confidence  in  the  skill  of  his 
medical  attendants.  And  yet  it  was  not  so.  A  sullen 
gloom  overclouded  his  faculties ;  he  could  not  summon 
resolution  to  tranquillise  his  emotions ;  and,  in  the 
absence  of  his  attendants,  he  gashed  himself,  with 
ghastly  and  debilitating  wounds,  as  if  the  blind  lacer 
ations  of  his  misguided  arm  could  prolong  the  mo 
ments  of  an  existence,  which  the  best  physicians  of 
London  declared  to  be  numbered. 

"  Is  there  any  thing  on  earth  I  can  do  for  you?  " 
said  Taylor  to  Wolcott,  known  as  Peter  Pindar,  as  he 
lay  on  his  death-bed.  "Give  me  back  my  youth;" 
were  the  last  words  of  the  satirical  buffoon. 

If  Johnson  could  hope  for  relief  from  self-inflicted 
wounds,  if  the  poet  could  prefer  to  his  friend  the 
useless  prayer  for  a  restoration  of  youth,  we  may 
readily  believe  what  historians  relate  to  us  of  the  end 
of  Louis  XL  of  France ;  a  monarch,  who  was  not  des 
titute  of  eminent  qualities  as  well  as  repulsive  vices ; 
possessing  courage,  a  knowledge  of  men  and  of  busi 
ness,  an  indomitable  will,  a  disposition  favorable  to  the 
administration  of  justice  among  his  subjects ;  viewing 
impunity  in  wrong  as  exclusively  a  royal  prerogative. 
Remorse,  fear,  a  consciousness  of  being  detested,  dis- 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  79 

gust  with  life  and  horror  of  death, — these  were  the  sen 
timents  which  troubled  the  sick  couch  of  the  absolute 
king.  The  first  of  his  line  who  bore  the  epithet  of 
"  the  most  Christian,"  he  was  so  abandoned  to  egotism, 
that  he  allowed  the  veins  of  children  to  be  opened, 
and  greedily  drank  their  blood ;  believing  with  physi 
cians  of  that  day,  that  it  would  renovate  his  youth,  or 
at  least  check  the  decay  of  nature.  The  cruelty  was 
useless.  At  last,  feeling  the  approach  of  death  to  be 
certain,  he  sent  for  an  anchorite  from  Calabria,  since 
revered  as  St.  Francis  de  Paule ;  and  when  the  hermit 
arrived,  the  monarch  of  France  entreated  him  to  spare 
his  life.  He  threw  himself  at  the  feet  of  the  man  who 
was  believed  to  derive  healing  virtues  from  the  sanctity 
of  his  character;  he  begged  the  intercession  of  his 
prayers ;  he  wept ;  he  supplicated ;  he  hoped  that  the 
voice  of  a  Calabrian  monk  would  reverse  the  order  of 
nature,  and  successfully  plead  for  his  respite. 

We  find  the  love  of  life  still  more  strongly  acknow 
ledged  by  an  English  poet ;  who,  after  describing  our 
being  as  the  dream  of  a  shadow,  "  a  weak-built  isth 
mus  between  two  eternities,  so  frail,  that  it  can  sustain 
neither  wind  nor  wave,"  yet  avows  his  preference  of  a 
few  days',  nay,  of  a  few  hours'  longer  residence  upon 
earth,  to  all  the  fame  which  poetry  can  achieve. 
Fain  would  I  see  that  prodigal, 
Who  his  to-morrow  would  bestow, 
For  all  old  Homer's  life,  e'er  since  he  died,  till  now  ! 


80  RULING    PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

II. 

We  do  not  believe  the  poet  sincere ;  for  one  passion 
may  prevail  over  another,  and  in  many  a  breast  the 
love  of  fame  is  at  times,  if  not  always,  the  strongest. 
But  if  those  who  pass  their  lives  in  a  struggle  for 
glory  may  desire  the  attainment  of  their  object  at  any 
price,  the  competitors  for  political  power  are  apt  to 
cling  fast  to  the  scene  of  their  rivalry.  Lord  Castle- 
reagh  could  indeed  commit  suicide ;  but  it  was  not 
from  disgust ;  his  mind  dwelt  on  the  precarious  condi 
tion  of  his  own  elevation,  and  the  unsuccessful  policy  in 
which  he  had  involved  his  country.  He  did  not  love 
death ;  he  did  not  contemplate  it  with  indifference ;  he 
failed  to  observe  its  terrors,  because  his  attention  was 
absorbed  by  apprehensions  which  pressed  themselves 
upon  him  with  unrelenting  force. 

The  ship  of  the  Marquis  of  Badajoz,  viceroy  of 
Peru,  was  set  on  fire  by  Captain  Stayner.  The 
marchioness,  and  her  daughter,  who  was  betrothed 
to  the  Duke  of  Medina-Celi,  swooned  in  the  flames, 
and  could  not  be  rescued.  The  marquis  resigned 
himelf  also  to  die,  rather  than  survive  with  the  memory 
of  such  horrors.  It  was  not,  that  he  was  careless  of 
life ;  the  natural  feelings  remained  unchanged ;  the 
love  of  grandeur ;  the  pride  of  opulence  and  dominion ; 
but  he  preferred  death,  because  that  was  out  of  sight, 
and  would  rescue  him  from  the  presence  of  absorbing 
and  intolerable  sorrows. 


RULING    PASSION    IN    DEATH.  81 

Madame  de  Sevigne,  in  her  charming  letters, 
gives  the  true  sensations  of  the  ambitious  man,  when 
suddenly  called  to  leave  the  scenes  of  his  efforts 
and  his  triumphs.  Rumor,  with  its  wonted  credu 
lity,  ascribed  to  Louvois,  the  powerful  minister  of 
Louis  XIV.,  the  crime  of  suicide.  His  death  was 
sudden,  but  not  by  his  own  arm;  he  fell  a  victim, 
if  not  to  disease,  to  the  revenge  of  a  wToman.  In 
a  night,  the  most  energetic,  reckless  statesman  in 
Europe,  passionately  fond  of  place,  extending  his  in 
fluence  to  every  cabinet,  and  embracing  in  his  views 
the  destiny  of  continents,  was  called  away.  How 
much  business  was  arrested  in  progress !  how  many 
projects  defeated !  how  many  secrets  buried  in  the 
silence  of  the  grave  !  Who  should  disentangle  the 
interests,  winch  his  policy  had  rendered  complicate? 
Who  should  terminate  the  wars  which  he  had  begun  ? 
Who  should  follow  up  the  blows  which  he  had  aimed  ? 
Well  might  he  have  exclaimed  to  the  angel  of  death, 
"  Ah,  grant  me  a  short  reprieve ;  spare  me,  till  I  can 
check  the  Duke  of  Savoy ;  checkmate  the  Prince  of 
Orange !  "•  — "  No  !  No  !  You  shall  not  have  a  single, 
single  minute." — Death  is  as  inexorable  to  the  prayer 
of  ambition,  as  to  the  entreaty  of  despair.  The  ruins 
of  the  Palatinate ;  the  wrongs  of  the  Huguenots  were  to 
be  avenged ;  and  Louvois,  like  Louis  XI.  and  like  the 
rest  of  mankind,  was  to  learn,  that  the  passion  for  life, 
whether  expressed  in  the  language  of  superstition,  of 
6 


82  RULING    PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

abject   despondency,   or   of  the   desire   of   continued 
power,  could  not  prolong  existence  for  a  moment. 


in. 


But  though  the  love  of  life  may  be  declared  a  uni 
versal  instinct,  it  does  not  follow  that  death  is  usually 
met  with  abjectness.  It  belongs  to  virtue  and  to  man 
liness  to  accept  the  inevitable  decree  with  firmness.  It 
is  often  sought  voluntarily ;  but  even  then  the  latent  pas 
sion  is  discernible.  A  sense  of  shame,  a  desire  of  plun 
der,  a  hope  of  emolument, — these,  not  less  than  a  sense 
of  duty,  are  motives  sufficient  to  influence  men  to  defy 
all  danger ;  yet  the  feeling  for  self-preservation  does  not 
cease  to  exert  its  power.  The  common  hireling  soldier 
contracts  to  expose  himself  to  the  deadly  fire  of  a 
hostile  army,  whenever  his  employers  may  command 
it ;  he  does  it,  in  a  controversy  of  which  he  knows  not 
the  merits,  for  a  party  to  which  he  is  essentially  indif 
ferent,  for  purposes  which,  perhaps,  if  his  mind  were 
enlightened,  he  would  labor  to  counteract.  The  life 
of  the  soldier  is  a  life  of  contrast ;  of  labor  and  idle 
ness  ;  it  is  a  course  of  routine,  easy  to  be  endured,  and 
leading  only  at  intervals  to  exposure.  The  love  of  ease, 
the  certainty  of  obtaining  the  means  of  existence,  the 
remoteness  of  peril,  conspire  to  tempt  adventurers,  and 
the  armies  of  Europe  have  never  suffered  from  any 
other  limit  than  the  wants  of  the  treasury.  But  the 


RULING  PASSION    IN    DEATH.  83 

same  soldier  would  fly  precipitately  from  any  hazard 
which  he  had  not  bargained  to  encounter.  The  mer 
chant  will  visit  the  deadliest  climates  in  pursuit  of 
gain ;  he  will  pass  over  regions,  where  the  air  is  known 
to  be  corrupt,  and  disease  to  have  anchored  itself  in 
the  hot,  heavy  atmosphere.  And  this  he  will  attempt 
repeatedly,  and  with  firmness,  in  defiance  of  the  crowds 
of  corpses  which  he  may  see  carried  by  wagon  loads  to 
the  grave-yards.  But  the  same  merchant  would  be 
struck  by  panic  and  desert  his  own  residence  in  a  more 
favored  chine,  should  it  be  invaded  by  epidemic  disease. 
He  who  would  fearlessly  meet  the  worst  forms  of  a 
storm  at  sea,  and  take  his  chance  of  escaping  the  fever 
as  he  passed  through  New  Orleans,  would  shun  New 
York  in  the  season  of  the  cholera,  and  shrink  from  any 
danger  which  was  novel  and  unexpected.  The  widows 
of  India  ascend  the  funeral  pile  with  a  fortitude  which 
man  could  never  display ;  and  emulously  yield  up 
their  lives  to  a  barbarous  usage,  which,  if  men  had  been 
called  upon  to  endure  it,  would  never  have  been  perpet 
uated.  Yet  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  these  unhappy 
victims  are  indifferent  to  the  charms  of  existence,  or 
blind  to  the  terrors  of  its  extinction  ?  Calmly  as  they 
may  lay  themselves  upon  the  pyre,  they  would  beg  for 
mercy,  were  their  execution  to  be  demanded  in  any 
other  way ;  they  would  confess  their  fear,  were  it  not 
that  love  and  honor  and  custom  confirm  their  doom. 
No  class  of  men  in  the  regular  discharge  of  duty 


84  RULING    PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

incur  danger  more  frequently  than  the  honest  physi 
cian.  There  is  no  type  of  malignant  maladies  with 
which  he  fails  to  become  acquainted ;  no  hospital  so 
crowded  with  contagion,  that  he  dares  not  walk  freely 
through  its  wards.  His  vocation  is  among  the  sick  and 
the  dying ;  he  is  the  familiar  friend  of  those  who  are 
sinking  under  infectious  disease ;  and  he  never  shrinks 
from  the  horror  of  observing  it  under  all  its  aspects. 
He  must  do  so  with  equanimity ;  as  he  inhales  the 
poisoned  atmosphere,  he  must  coolly  reflect  on  the 
medicines  which  may  mitigate  the  sufferings  that  he 
cannot  remedy.  Nay ;  after  death  has  ensued,  he 
must  search  with  the  dissecting  knife  for  its  hidden 
cause,  if  so  by  multiplying  his  own  perils  he  may  dis 
cover  some  alleviation  for  the  afflictions  of  others.  And 
why  is  this  ?  Because  the  physician  is  indifferent  to 
death?  Because  he  is  steeled  and  hardened  against 
the  fear  of  it  ?  Because  he  despises  or  pretends  to 
despise  it  ?  By  no  means.  It  is  his  especial  business 
to  value  life;  to  cherish  the  least  spark  of  animated 
existence.  And  the  habit  of  caring  for  the  lives  of  his 
fellow-men,  is  far  from  leading  him  to  an  habitual  in 
difference  to  his  own.  The  physician  shuns  every 
danger,  but  such  as  the  glory  of  his  profession  com- 
mands  him  to  defy. 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  85 

IV. 

Thus  we  are  led  to  explain  the  anomaly  of  suicide, 
and  reconcile  the  apparent  contradiction  of  a  terror 
of  death,  which  is  yet  voluntarily  encountered.  It 
may  seem  a  paradox;  but  the  dread  of  dying  has 
itself  sometimes  prompted  suicide,  and  the  man  who 
seeks  to  destroy  himself,  at  the  very  moment  of  perpe 
trating  his  crime  betrays  the  passion  for  life.  Menace 
him  with  death  under  a  different  form  from  that  which 
he  has  chosen,  and  like  other  men,  he  will  get  out  of 
its  way.  He  will  defend  himself  against  the  assassin, 
though  he  might  be  ready  to  cut  his  own  throat ;  he 
will,  if  at  sea,  and  the  ship  were  sinking  in  a  storm, 
labor  with  his  whole  strength  to  save  it  from  going 
down,  even  if  he  had  formed  the  design  to  leap  into  the 
ocean  in  the  first  moment  of  a  calm.  Place  him  in  the 
van  of  an  army,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  he  will 
not  prove  a  coward ;  tell  him  the  cholera  is  about  to 
rage,  and  he  will  deluge  himself  with  preventive  reme 
dies  ;  send  him  to  a  house  visited  with  yellow  fever, 
and  he  will  steep  himself  in  vinegar  and  carry  with  him 
an  atmosphere  of  camphor.  It  is  only  under  the  one 
form,  which  the  mind  in  some  insane  excitement  may 
have  chosen,  that  he  preserves  the  desire  to  leave  the 
world. 

It  will  not  be  difficult,  then,  to  set  a  right  value  on 
the  declaration  of  those  who  profess  to  regard  death 


86  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

not  with  indifference  merely,  but  contempt.  It  is  pure 
affectation,  or  the  indulgence  of  a  vulgar  levity ;  and 
must  excite  either  compassion  or  disgust,  according  as  it 
is  marked  by  the  spirit  of  fiendish  scoffing  or  of  human 
vanity  and  self-deception.  A  French  moralist  tells  us 
of  a  Valet,  who  danced  merrily  on  the  scaffold,  where 
he  was  to  be  broken  on  the  wheel.  A  New  England 
woman,  belonging  to  a  family  which  esteemed  itself 
one.  of  the  first,  was  convicted  of  aiding  her  paramour 
to  kill  her  husband.  She  was  a  complete  sensualist, 
one  to  whom  life  was  every  thing,  and  the  loss  of  it  the 
total  shipwreck  of  every  thing.  On  her  way  to  the 
place  of  execution  she  was  accompanied  by  a  clergyman 
of  no  very  great  ability ;  and  all  along  the  road,  with 
the  gallows  in  plain  sight,  she  amused  herself  in  teas 
ing  the  good  man,  whose  wits  were  no  match  for  her 
raillery.  He  had  been  buying  a  new  chaise,  quite  an 
event  in  the  life  of  an  humble  country  pastor,  and  when 
he  spoke  of  the  next  world,  she  would  amuse  herself  in 
praising  his  purchase.  If  he  deplored  her  fate  and  her 
prospects,  she  would  grieve  at  his  exposure  to  the  in 
clement  weather ;  and  laughed  and  chatted,  as  if  she 
had  been  driving  to  a  wedding,  and  not  to  her  own 
funeral.  And  why  was  this  ?  Because  death  was  not 
feared  ?  No ;  but  because  death  was  feared,  and 
feared  intensely.  The  Eastern  women,  who  are  burned 
alive  with  their  deceased  husbands,  often  utter  shrieks 
that  would  pierce  the  hearers  to  the  soul ;  and  to  pre- 


RULING    PASSION    IN    DEATH.  87 

vent  a  compassion  which  would  endanger  the  reign  of 
superstition,  the  priests  with  drums  and  cymbals, 
drown  the  terrific  cries  of  their  victims.  So  it  is  with 
those  wTho  go  to  the  court  of  the  King  of  Terrors  with 
merriment  on  their  lips.  They  dread  his  presence; 
and  they  seek  to  drown  the  noise  of  his  approaching 
footsteps  by  the  sound  of  their  own  ribaldry.  If  the 
scaffold  often  rings  with  a  jest,  it  is  because  the  mind 
shrinks  from  the  solemnity  of  the  impending  change. 


v. 

Perhaps  the  most  common  device  for  averting  con 
templation  from  death  itself,  is  in  directing  it  to  the 
manner  of  dying.  Vanitas  vanitatum!  Vanity  does 
not  give  up  its  hold  on  the  last  hour.  Men  wish  to  die 
with  distinction,  to  be  buried  in  state ;  and  the  last 
thoughts  are  employed  on  the  decorum  of  the  moment, 
or  in  the  anticipation  of  funereal  splendors.  It  was  no 
uncommon  thing  among  the  Romans  for  a  rich  man  to 
appoint  an  heir,  on  condition  that  his  obsequies  should 
be  celebrated  with  costly  pomp.  "  When  I  am  dead," 
said  an  Indian  chief,  who  fell  into  his  last  sleep  at 
Washington, — "  when  I  am  dead,  let  the  big  guns  be 
fired  over  me. "  The  words  were  thought  worthy 
of  being  engraved  on  his  tomb  ;  but  they  are  no 
more  than  a  plain  expression  of  a  very  common  passion ; 
the  same,  which  leads  the  humblest  to  desire  that  at 


00  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

.east  a  stone  may  be  placed  at  the  head  of  his  grave, 
and  demands  the  erection  of  splendid  mausoleums  and 
costly  tombs  for  the  mistaken  men, 

Who  by  the  proofs  of  death  pretend  to  live. 

Among  the  ancients,  an  opulent  man,  while  yet  in 
health,  would  order  his  own  sarcophagus ;  and  nowa 
days  the  wealthy  sometimes  build  their  own  tombs,  for 
the  sake  of  securing  a  satisfactory  monument.  A  vain 
man,  who  had  done  this  at  a  great  expense,  showed 
his  motive  so  plainly,  that  his  neighbors  laughed  with 
the  sexton  of  the  parish,  who  wished  that  the  builder 
might  not  be  kept  long  out  of  the  interest  of  his 
money. 

But  it  is  not  merely  in  the  decorations  of  the  grave 
that  vanity  is  displayed.  Saladin,  in  his  last  illness, 
instead  of  his  usual  standard,  ordered  his  shroud  to  be 
uplifted  in  front  of  his  tent ;  and  the  herald,  who  hung 
out  this  winding-sheet  as  a  flag,  was  commanded  to 
exclaim  aloud :  "  Behold !  this  is  all  which  Saladin,  the 
vanquisher  of  the  East,  carries  away  of  all  his  con 
quests."  He  was  wrong  there.  He  came  naked  into 
the  world,  and  he  left  it  naked.  Grave-clothes  were  a 
superfluous  luxury,  and  to  the  person  receiving  them, 
as  barren  of  comfort  as  his  sceptre  or  his  scymitar. 
Saladin  was  vain.  He  sought  in  dying  to  contrast  the 
power  he  had  enjoyed  with  the  feebleness  of  his  con 
dition;  to  pass  from  the  world  in  a  striking  an- 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  89 

tithesis ;    to  make  his  death  scene  an  epigram.     All 
was  vanity. 

A  century  ago  it  was  the  fashion  for  culprits  to 
appear  on  the  scaffold  in  the  dress  of  dandies.     Some 
centuries  before,  it  was  the  privilege  of  noblemen,  if 
they  merited  hanging,   to    escape   the   gallows,   and 
perish  on  the  block.     The  Syrian  priests  had  foretold 
to  the  emperor  Heliogabalus,  that  he  would  be  reduced 
to  the  necessity  of  committing  suicide ;  believing  them 
true  prophets,  he  kept  in  readiness  silken  cords  and  a 
sword  of  gold.     Admirable  privilege  of  the  nobility,  to 
be  beheaded  instead  of  hanged  !     Enviable  prerogative 
of  imperial  dignity,  to  be  strangled  with  a  knot  of  silk, 
or  to  be  assassinated  with  a  golden  sword ! 
Odious  !  in  woollen !  'twould  a  saint  provoke, 
(Were  the  last  words  that  poor  Narcissa  spoke.) 
No,  let  a  charming  chintz,  and  Brussels  lace 
Wrap  my  cold  limbs,  and  shade  my  lifeless  face ; 
One  would  not  sure  be  frightful  when  one's  dead, 
And — Betty — give  this  cheek  a  little  red. 

The  example  chosen  by  the  poet,  extended  to  ap 
pearances  after  death;  for  the  presence  of  the  same 
weakness  in  the  hour  of  mortality  we  must  look  to 
the  precincts  of  courts,  where  folly  used  to  reign  by 
prescriptive  right ;  where  caprice  gives  law  and  pleas 
ures  consume  life.  There  you  may  witness  the  har 
lot's  euthanasia.  The  Trench  court  was  at  Choisy, 
when  Madame  de  Pompadour  felt  the  pangs  of  a  fatal 


90  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

malady.  It  had  been  the  established  etiquette,  that  none 
but  princes  and  persons  of  royal  blood  should  breathe 
their  last  in  Versailles.  Proclaim  to  the  gay  circles  of 
Paris,  that  a  thing,  new  and  unheard  of,  is  to  be  per 
mitted  !  Announce  to  the  world,  that  the  rules  of 
palace  propriety  and  Bourbon  decorum  are  to  be 
broken !  that  the  chambers,  where  vice  had  fearlessly 
lived  and  laughed,  but  never  been  permitted  to  expire, 
were  to  admit  the  novel  spectacle  of  the  king's  favorite 
mistress,  struggling  with  death. 

The  marchioness  questioned  the  physicians  firmly ; 
she  perceived  their  hesitation ;  she  saw  the  hand  that 
beckoned  her  away ;  and  she  determined,  says  the  his 
torian,  to  depart  in  the  pomp  of  a  queen.  Louis  XV., 
himself  not  capable  of  a  strong  emotion,  was  yet 
willing  to  concede  to  his  dying  friend  the  consolation 

O    .  v  <J 

which  she  coveted,  the  opportunity  to  reign  till  her  part 
ing  gasp.  The  courtiers  thronged  round  the  death-bed 
of  a  woman,  who  distributed  favors  with  the  last  exha 
lations  of  her  breath ;  and  the  king  hurried  to  name  to 
public  offices  the  persons  whom  her  faltering  accents 
recommended.  Her  sick  room  became  a  scene  of  state ; 
the  princes  and  grandees  still  entered  to  pay  their 
homage  to  the  woman  whose  power  did  not  yield  to 
mortal  disease,  and  were  surprised  to  find  her  richly 
attired.  The  traces  of  death  in  her  countenance  were 
concealed  by  rouge.  She  reclined  on  a  splendid 
couch ;  questions  of  public  policy  were  discussed  by 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  91 

ministers  in  her  presence ;  she  gloried  in  holding  to 
the  end  the  reins  of  the  kingdom  in  her  hands.  Even 
a  sycophant  clergy  showed  respect  to  the  expiring 
favorite ;  and  felt  no  shame  at  sanctioning  with  their 
frequent  visits  the  vices  of  a  woman  who  had  entered 
the  palace  only  as  an  adulteress.  Having  complied 
with  the  rites  of  the  Roman  church,  she  next  sought 
the  approbation  of  the  philosophers.  She  lisped  no 
word  of  penitence ;  she  shed  no  tears  of  regret.  The 
surate  left  her  as  she  was  in  the  agony :  "  Wait 
a  moment,"  said  she,  "we  will  leave  the  house  to 
gether." 

The  dying  mistress  was  worshipped  while  she 
breathed ;  hardly  was  she  dead  when  the  scene  changed ; 
two  domestics  carried  out  her  body  on  a  hand-barrow 
from  the  palace  to  her  private  home.  The  king  stood 
at  the  window,  looking  at  the  clouds,  as  her  remains 
were  carried  by.  "  The  Marchioness,"  said  he,  "  will 
have  bad  weather  on  her  journey." 


VI. 


The  flickering  lamp  blazes  with  unusual  brightness, 
just  as  it  goes  out.  "  The  fit  gives  vigor,  as  it  destroys." 
He  who  has  but  a  moment  remaining,  is  released  from 
the  common  motives  for  dissimulation ;  and  time,  that 
lays  his  hand  on  every  thing  else,  destroying  beauty, 
undermining  health,  and  wasting  the  powers  of  life, 


92  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

spares  the  ruling  passion,  which  is  connected  with  the 
soul  itself.     That  passion 

Sticks  to  our  last  sand. 
Consistent  in  our  follies  and  our  sins, 
Here  honest  nature  ends  as  she  begins. 
Napoleon  expired  during  the  raging  of  a  whirlwind, 
and  his  last  words  showed  that  his  thoughts  were  in 
the  battle-field.  The  meritorious  author  of  the  Memoir 
of  Cabot,  a  work  which  in  accuracy  and  in  extensive 
research  is  very  far  superior  to  most  late  treatises  on 
maritime  discovery,  tells  us,  that  the  discoverer  of  our 
continent,  in  a  hallucination  before  his  death,  believed 
himself  again  on  the  ocean,  once  more  steering  in  quest 
of  adventure  over  waves,  which  knew  him  as  the  steed 
knows  its  rider.  How  many  a  gentle  eye  has  been 
dimmed  with  tears,  as  it  read  the  fabled  fate  of  Fergus 
Maclvor !  Not  inferior  to  the  admirable  hero  of  the 
romance,  was  the  Marquis  of  Montrose,  who  had 
fought  for  the  Stuarts,  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Presbyterians.  His  head  and  his  limbs  were  ordered 
to  be  severed  from  his  body,  and  to  be  hanged  on  the 
Tolbooth  in  Edinburgh,  and  in  other  public  towns  of 
the  kingdom.  He  listened  to  the  sentence  with  the 
pride  of  loyalty  and  the  fierce  anger  of  a  generous  de 
fiance.  "  I  wish,"  he  exclaimed,  "  I  had  flesh  enough 
to  be  sent  to  every  city  in  Christendom,  as  a  testimony 
to  the  cause  for  which  I  suffer." 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  93 

But  let  us  take  an  example  of  sublimer  virtue,  such 
as  we  find  in  a  statesman,  who  lived  without  a  stain 
from  youth  to  maturity,  and  displayed  an  unwavering 
consistency  to  the  last ;  a  hero  in  civil  life,  who  was  in 
some  degree  our  own.  It  becomes  America  to  take 
part  in  rescuing  from  undeserved  censure  the  names 
and  the  memory  of  victims  to  the  unconquerable  love 
of  republican  liberty. 
Vane,  young  in  years,  in  counsel  old :  to  know 

Both  spiritual  power  and  civil,  what  each  means, 
What  severs  each,  thou'st  learned,  which  few  have  done. 

The  bounds  of  either  sword  to  thee  we  owe ; 
Therefore  on  thy  firm  hand  religion  leans 

In  peace,  and  reckons  thee  her  eldest  son. 
He,  that  would  discern  the  difference  between 
magnanimous  genius  and  a  shallow  wit,  may  com 
pare  this  splendid  eulogy  of  Milton  with  the  superficial 
levity  in  the  commentary  of  Warton.  It  is  a  fashion 
to  call  Sir  Henry  Vane  a  fanatic.  And  what  is  fanat 
icism  ?  True,  he  was  a  rigid  Calvinist.  True,  he  has 
written  an  obscure  book  on  the  mystery  of  godliness, 
of  which  all  that  we  understand  is  excellent,  and  we 
may,  therefore,  infer  that  the  vein  of  the  rest  is  good. 
But  does  this  prove  him  a  fanatic  ?  If  to  be  the  un 
compromising  defender  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  be 
fanaticism ;  if  to  forgive  injuries  be  fanaticism ;  if  to 
believe  that  the  mercy  of  God  extends  to  all  his 
creatures,  and  may  reach  even  the  angels  of  dark- 


94  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

ness,  be  fanaticism ;  if  to  have  earnestly  supported 
in  the  Long  Parliament  the  freedom  of  conscience, — 
if  to  have  repeatedly,  boldly  and  zealously  interposed 
to  check  the  persecution  of  Roman  Catholics, — if  to 
have  labored  that  the  sect  which  he  least  approved, 
should  enjoy  their  property  in  security,  and.,  be 
safe  from  all  penal  enactments  for  non-conformity, — if 
in  his  public  life  to  have  pursued  a  career  of  firm,  con 
scientious,  disinterested  consistency,  never  wavering, 
never  trimming,  never  changing, — if  all  this  be  fanat 
icism,  then  was  Sir  Harry  Vane  a  fanatic.  Not  other 
wise.  The  people  of  Massachusetts  declined  to  con 
tinue  him  in  office ;  and  when  his  power  in  England 
was  great,  he  requited  the  Colony  with  the  benefits  of 
his  favoring  influence.  He  resisted  the  arbitrariness  of 
Charles  I.,  but  would  not  sit  as  one  of  his  judges. 
He  opposed  the  tyranny  of  Cromwell.  When  that 
extraordinary  man  entered  the  House  of  Commons 
to  break  up  the  Parliament,  which  was  about  to 
pass  laws  that  would  have  endangered  his  supremacy, 
Vane  rebuked  him  for  his  purpose  of  treason.  When 
the  musketeers  invaded  the  hall  of  debate,  and  others 
were  silent,  Vane  exclaimed  to  the  most  despotic  man 
in  Europe,  "  This  is  not  honest.  It  is  against  morality 
and  common  honesty."  Well  might  Cromwell,  since 
his  designs  were  criminal,  reply,  "  Sir  Henry  Vane ! 
Sir  Henry  Vane !  The  Lord  deliver  me  from  Sir 
Henry  Vane." 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  95 

Though  Vane  suffered  from  the  usurpation  of  the 
Protector,  he  lived  to  see  the  Restoration.  On  the 
return  of  the  Stuarts,  like  Lafayette  among  the  Bour 
bons,  he  remained  the  stanch  enemy  of  tyranny.  The 
austere  patriot,  whom  Cromwell  had  feared,  struck 
terror  into  the  hearts  of  a  faithless  and  licentious  court. 
It  was  resolved  to  destroy  him.  In  a  different  age  or 
country  the  poisoned  cup,  or  the  knife  of  the  assassin, 
might  have  been  used ;  in  that  season  of  corrupt  in 
fluence,  a  judicial  murder  was  resolved  upon.  His  death 
was  a  deliberate  crime,  contrary  to  the  royal  promise ; 
contrary  to  the  express  vote  of  "the  healing  par 
liament  ; "  contrary  to  law,  to  equity,  to  the  evidence. 
But  it  suited  the  designs  of  a  monarch,  who  feared  to 
be  watched  by  a  statesman  of  incorruptible  elevation 
of  character.  The  night  before  his  execution,  he  en 
joyed  the  society  of  his  family,  as  if  he  had  been  re 
posing  in  his  own  mansion.  The  next  morning  he 
was  beheaded.  The  least  concession  would  have  saved 
him.  If  he  had  only  consented  to  deny  the  supremacy 
of  parliament,  the  king  would  have  restrained  the  malig 
nity  of  his  hatred.  "  Ten  thousand  deaths  for  me,"  ex 
claimed  Vane,  "  ere  I  will  stain  the  purity  of  my  con 
science."  Historians  report  that  life  was  dear  to  him ; 
he  submitted  to  his  end  with  the  firmness  of  a  patriot, 
the  serenity  of  a  Christian. 
"  I  give  and  I  devise,"  (Old  Euclio  said, 
And  sighed,)  "my -lands  and  tenements  to  Ned." 


96  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

Your  money,  sir  ? — "  My  money,  sir !  what  all  ? 
Why,— if  I  must,"— (then  wept,)  "I  give  it  Paul." 
The  manor,  sir  ? — "  The  manor  !  hold,"  he  cried, 
"  Not  that, — I  cannot  part  with  that,"' — and  died. 
Lorenzo  de  Medici,  upon  his  death-bed,  sent  for 
Savonarola  to  receive  his  confession  and  grant  him 
absolution.  The  severe  anchorite  questioned  the  dying 
sinner  with  unsparing  rigor.  "  Do  you  believe  entirely 
in  the  mercy  of  God  ? " — •"  Yes,  I  feel  it  in  my 
heart."  —  "Are  you  truly  ready  to  restore  all  the 
possessions  and  estates  which  you  have  unjustly  ac 
quired  ?  " — The  dying  Duke  hesitated ;  he  counted  up 
in  his  mind  the  sums  which  he  had  hoarded ;  delusion 
whispered  that  nearly  all  had  been  so  honestly  gained, 
that  the  sternest  censor  would  strike  but  little  from  his 
opulence.  The  pains  of  hell  were  threatened  if  he 
denied ;  and  he  gathered  courage  to  reply,  that  he  was 
ready  to  make  restitution.  Once  more  the  unyielding 
priest  resumed  his  inquisition.  "  Will  you  resign  the 
sovereignty  of  Florence,  and  restore  the  democracy  of 
the  republic  ?  "  Lorenzo,  like  Macbeth,  had  acquired 
a  crown ;  but,  unlike  Macbeth,  he  saw  sons  of  his  own 
about  to  become  his  successors.  He  gloried  in  the 
hope  of  being  the  father  of  princes,  the  founder  of  a 
line  of  hereditary  sovereigns.  Should  he  crush  this 
brilliant  expectation,  and  tremble  at  the  wild  words 
of  a  visionary?  Should  he  who  had  reigned  as  a 
monarch,  stoop  to  die  as  a  merchant  ?  No  !  though 


RULING  PASSION  IN  DEATH.  97 

hell  itself  were  opening  beneath  his  bed.  "  Not  that ! 
I  cannot  part  with  that."  Savonarola  left  his  bedside 
with  indignation,  and  Lorenzo  died  without  shrift. 

And  you  brave  Cobham,  to  the  latest  breath, 
Shall  feel  your  ruling  passion  strong  in  death, 
Such  in  those  moments  as  in  all  the  past, — 
"  Oh !  save  my  country,  Heaven ! "  shall  be  your  last. 
Like  this   was    the    exclamation    of    the   patriot 
Quincy,  whose  virtues  have  been  fitly  commemorated 
by  the  pious  reverence  of  his  son.     The  celebrated 
Admiral  Blake  breathed  his  last  as  he  came  in  sight 
of  England,  happy  in  at  least  descrying  the  land,  of 
which   he   had   advanced  the   glory  by  his   brilliant 
victories.     Quincy  died  as  he  approached  the  coast  of 
Massachusetts.      He   loved  his  family;   but   at  that 
moment  he  gave  his  whole  soul  to  the  cause  of  free 
dom.     "Oh   that   I  might   live," — it   was  his  dying 
wish, — •"  to  render  to  my  country  one  last  service." 


VII. 


The  coward  falls  panic-stricken ;  the  superstitious 
man  dies  with  visions  of  terror  floating  before  his 
fancy.  It  has  even  happened  that  a  man  has  been 
in  such  dread  of  eternal  woe,  as  to  cut  his  throat  in  his . 
despair.  The  phenomenon  seems  strange ;  but  the  fact 
is  unquestionable.  The  giddy,  that  are  near  a  preci 
pice,  totter  towards  the  brink  which  they  would  shun. 
Every  body  remembers  the  atheism  and  bald  sensuality 


98  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

of  the  septuagenarian  Alexander  VI. ;  and  the  name 
of  his  natural  son,  Caesar  Borgia,  is  a  proverb,  as  a 
synonym  for  the  most  vicious  selfishness.  Let  one 
tale,  of  which  MacchiaveUi  attests  the  truth,  set  forth  the 
deep  baseness  of  a  cowardly  nature.  Borgia  had,  by 
the  most  solemn  oaths,  induced  the  Duke  of  Gravina, 
Oliverotto,  Vitellozzo  Vitelli,  and  another,  to  meet  him 
in  Senigaglia,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  treaty,  and 
then  issued  the  order  for  the  massacre  of  Oliverotto 
and  Vitelli.  Can  it  be  believed?  Vitelli,  as  he 
expired,  begged  of  the  infamous  Borgia,  his  assassin, 
to  obtain  of  Alexander  a  dispensation  for  his  omis 
sions,,  a  release  from  purgatory. 

The  death-bed  of  Cromwell  himself  was  not  free 
from  superstition.  When  near  his  end,  he  asked  if  the 
elect  could  never  fall.  "  Never,"  replied  Godwin  the 
preacher.  "Then  am  I  safe,"  said  the  man  whose 
last  years  had  been  stained  by  cruelty  and  tyranny ; 
"  for  I  am  sure  I  was  once  in  a  state  of  grace." 

Ximenes  languished  from  disappointment  at  the 
loss  of  power  and  the  want  of  royal  favor.  A  smile 
from  Louis  would  have  cheered  the  death-bed  of 
Racine. 

In  a  brave  mind  the  love  of  honor  endures  to  the 
last.  "Don't  give  up  the  ship,"  cried  Lawrence,  as 
his  life-blood  was  flowing  in  torrents.  Abimelech 
groaned  that  he  fell  ignobly  by  the  hand  of  a  woman. 
We  have  ever  admired  the  gallant  death  of  Sir  Richard 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  99 

Grenville,  who,  in  a  single  ship,  encountered  a  nu 
merous  fleet ;  and  when  mortally  wounded,  husbanded 
his  strength,  till  he  could  summon  his  victors  to  bear 
testimony  to  his  courage  and  his  patriotism.  "  Here 
die  I,  Richard  Grenville,  with  a  joyous  and  quiet  mind, 
for  that  I  have  ended  my  life  as  a  true  soldier  ought  to 
do,  fighting  for  his  country,  queen,  religion  and  honor." 
The  public  has  been  instructed  through  the  press 
in  the  details  of  the  treason  of  Benedict  Arnold,  by  an 
inquirer,  who  has  compassed  earth  and  sea  in  search  of 
historic  truth,  and  has  merited  the  applause  of  his 
country,  not  less  for  candor  and  judgment,  than  for 
diligence  and  ability.  The  victim  of  the  intrigue  was 
Andre.  The  mind  of  the  young  soldier  revolted  at  the 
service  of  treachery  in  which  he  had  become  involved, 
and  holding  a  stain  upon  honor  to  be  worse  than  the 
forfeiture  of  life,  he  shuddered  at  the  sight  of  the  gal 
lows,  but  not  at  the  thought  of  dying.  He  felt  the 
same  sentiment  which  made  death  welcome  to  Nelson 
and  to  Wolfe,  to  whom  it  came  with  glory  and  victory 
for  its  companions  ;  but  for  Andre,  the  keen  sense  of 
honor  added  bitterness  to  the  cup  of  affliction,  by 
exciting  fear  lest  the  world  should  take  the  manner  of 
his  execution  as  evidence  of  merited  opprobrium. 

vm. 

Finally :  he  who  has  a  good  conscience  and    awell 
balanced  mind  meets  death  with  calmness,  resignation, 


100  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

and  hope.  Saint  Louis  died  among  the  ruins  of 
Carthage ;  a  Christian  king,  laboring  in  vain  to  expel 
the  religion  of  Mahomet  from  the  spot  where  Dido 
had  planted  the  gods  of  Syria.  "  My  friends,"  said 
he,  "  I  have  finished  my  course.  Do  not  mourn  for 
me.  It  is  natural  that  I,  as  your  chief  and  leader, 
should  go  before  you.  You  must  follow  me.  Keep 
yourselves  in  readiness  for  the  journey."  Then  giving 
his  son  his  blessing  and  the  best  advice,  he  received 
the  sacrament,  closed  his  eyes,  and  died,  as  he  was  re 
peating  from  the  Psalms,  "  I  will  come  into  thy  house  • 
I  will  worship  in  thy  holy  temple." 

The  curate  of  St.  Sulpice  asked  the  confessor  who 
had  shrived  Montesquieu  on  his  death-bed,  if  the  peni 
tent  had  given  satisfaction.  "  Yes,"  replied  father 
Roust,  "  like  a  man  of  genius."  The  curate  was  dis 
pleased  ;  unwilling  to  leave  the  dying  man  a  moment 
of  tranquillity,  he  addressed  him,  "  Sir,  are  you  truly 
conscious  of  the  greatness  of  God  ?  "  "  Yes,"  said 
the  departing  philosopher,  "  and  of  the  littleness  of 
man." 

How  calm  were  the  last  moments  of  Cuvier  ! 
Benevolence  of  feeling  and.  self-possession  diffused 
serenity  round  the  hour  of  his  passing  away.  Con 
fident  that  the  hand  of  death  was  upon  him,  he  yet 
submitted  to  the  application  of  remedies,  that  he  might 
gratify  his  more  hopeful  friends.  They  had  recourse 
to  leeches ;  and  with  delightful  simplicity  the  great 


RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH.  101 

naturalist  observed,  it  was  he  who  had  discovered  that 
leeches  possess  red  blood.  The  discovery,  which  he 
made  in  his  youth,  had  been  communicated  to  the  pub 
lic  in  the  memoir  that  first  gained  him  celebrity.  The 
thoughts  of  the  dying  naturalist  recurred  to  the 
scenes  of  his  early  life,  to  the  coast  of  Normandy, 
where,  in  the  solitude  of  conscious  genius,  he  had 
roamed  by  the  side  of  the  ocean,  and  achieved 
fame  by  observing  the  wonders  of  animal  life 
which  are  nourished  in  its  depths.  He  remembered 
his  years  of  poverty,  the  sullen  rejection  which  his  first 
claims  for  advancement  had  received,  and  all  the 
vicissitudes  through  which  he  had  been  led  to  the 
highest  distinctions  in  science.  The  son  of  the 
Wirtemberg  soldier,  of  too  feeble  a  frame  to  em 
brace  the  profession  of  his  father,  had  found  his  way 
to  the  secrets  of  nature.  The  man  who,  in  his  own 
province,  had  been  refused  the  means  of  becoming  the 
village  pastor  of  an  ignorant  peasantry,  had  succeeded 
in  charming  the  most  polished  circles  of  Paris  by  the 
clearness  of  his  descriptions,  and  commanding  the 
attention  of  the  Deputies  of  Prance  by  the  grace 
and  fluency  of  his  elocution.  And  now  he  was 
calmly  predicting  his  departure ;  his  respiration  be 
came  rapid ;  and  his  head  fell  as  if  he  were  in  med 
itation.  Thus  his  soul  passed  to  its  Creator  without  a 
struggle.  "  Those  who  entered  afterwards  would 
have  thought -that  the  noble  old  man,  seated  in  his 


102  RULING   PASSION    IN    DEATH. 

arm-chair  by  the  fire-place,  was  asleep ;  and  would 
have  walked  softly  across  the  room  for  fear  of  dis 
turbing  him."  Heaven  had  but  "  recalled  its  own." 

The  death  of  Haller  himself  was  equally  tranquil. 
When  its  hour  approached,  he  watched  the  ebbing  of 
life  and  continued  to  observe  the  beating  of  his  pulse 
till  sensation  was  gone. 

A  tranquil  death  becomes  the  man  of  science,  or 
the  scholar.  He  should  cultivate  letters  to  the  last 
moment  of  life;  he  should  resign  public  honors,  as 
calmly  as  one  would  take  off  a  domino  on  returning 
from  a  mask.  He  should  listen  to  the  signal  for  his 
departure,  not  with  exultation,  and  not  with  indiffer 
ence.  Respecting  the  dread  solemnity  of  the  change, 
and  reposing  in  hope  on  the  bosom  of  death,  he  should 
pass,  without  boldness  and  without  fear,  from  the 
struggles  of  inquiry  to  the  certainty  of  knowledge, 
from  a  world  of  doubt  to  a  world  of  truth. 


STUDIES  IN   GERMAN  LITERATURE. 

GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS. 
f 

I. 

NATIONAL  literature  varies  with,  national  char 
acter.  It  represents  the  aspect  under  which  the  world 
is  contemplated,  and  shows  the  coloring  imparted  by 
climate,  government,  and  society.  The  Muse,  with 
her  divine  inventions,  may  shape  the  character  of  a 
people  after  a  favorite  pattern  of  ideal  excellence ;  but 
the  beauty,  concentrated  in  the  model,  must  have 
already  existed  in  surrounding  realities,  which  imagi 
nation  only  combines  and  vivifies.  The  hearts  of  the 
many  will  not  be  moved,  except  the  appeal  be  made 
to  passions  which  are  already  strong,  and  gratify 
tastes  and  awaken  sympathies  which  are  already 
formed. 

The  literature  of  a  nation,  therefore,  commends  it 
self  to  the  attention  of  enlightened  curiosity,  even  inde 
pendently  of  its  intrinsic  merits,  from  the  knowledge  it 
sheds  on  the  nature  of  man.  Genius  remains  always 


104  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

the  same  high  gift.  But  how  differently  has  it 
ripened  under  the  grateful  splendor  of  an  Italian  sky, 
and  in  the  chilling  climate  of  the  North !  at  the  court 
of  Louis,  and  on  the  soil  of  Germany !  at  Edinburgh 
and  Ispahan  !  at  Vienna  and  Washington  !  And  this 
diversity  gives  relief  to  the  productions  of  each  nation, 
and  constitutes  their  interchange  a  reciprocity  of  bene 
fits  and  gratifications!  We  censure  the  extravagant 
creations  of  oriental  fancy,  and  yet  the  East  has  given 
to  the  West  more  than  it  has  received.  It  has  peopled 
the  air  with  sylphs,  and  filled  the  wTorld  of  man  with 
magic  agencies  ;  it  contributed  many  a  strange  tale  to 
be  wrought  into  beautiful  shape  by  the  more  careful 
European  artist.  In  the  Fairy  Queen,  to  glance  only 
at  English  literature,  something  of  its  manner  was 
blended  with  Spenser's  sweetness  and  melancholy ; 
and  it  adds  vivacity  to  the  playful  satire  of  Pope.  The 
story  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice  is  of  Eastern  origin ; 
and  the  Tempest  and  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream 
borrow  their  charms  from  the  brilliant  legends  of  the 
same  clime.  Thus  it  is,  that  while  learning  blesses 
its  possessors,  the  stores  which  it  collects  and  dispenses, 
contribute  to  the  general  instruction  and  amusement. 

A  universal  interest  and  extended  culture  favor  not 
the  variety  of  literary  productions  only,  but  also  the 
culture  of  taste.  .They  are  necessary  to  the  acquisition 
of  just  discrimination,  and  the  quick  perception  and 
ready  acknowledgment  of  merit.  There  may  be  an 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  105 

intuitive  perception  of  excellence,  but  it  is  only  from 
large  comparisons  that  we  arrive  at  safe  inferences. 
The  mind  that  takes  a  wide  range,  is  willing  to  observe 
the  manner  in  which  genius  contemplates  nature  under 
every  sky  and  in  every  condition  of  life ;  it  gains  the 
power  of  recognising  beauty  of  invention,  by  what 
ever  disguise  the  public  fashions  of  place  and  time 
may  have  hid  its  lustre. 

The  freedom  capable  of  discerning  beauty  in 
writing,  independent  of  local  peculiarities,  is  a  vic 
tory  over  prejudice  and  narrowness.  Its  reward  is 
vast  and  immediate,  and  consists  in  the  power  of 
receiving  enjoyment  from  every  exhibition  of  genius. 
Perhaps  no  people  offers  in  its  literature  more  nume 
rous  or  more  opposite  causes  of  gratification  than  the 
Germans.  Others  may  surpass  them  in  melody  of 
verse,  or  exact  and  measured  elegance ;  but  never 
before  did  the  world  behold  a  nation  mature,  in  a 
century,  a  literature  so  diversified  in  its  character, 
marked  by  so  much  learning  and  so  much  liberality, 
so  full  of  thought  and  imagination,  so  distinguished 
alike  for  philosophical  reasoning,  and  the  boldest 
expression  of  enthusiastic  feeling. 

The  aspect  of  nature  is  reflected  in  German  liter 
ature.  In  Italy,  the  Apennines,  for  the  most  part 
scantily  wooded,  or  even  entirely  naked,  rise  in  beau 
tiful  and  successive  ranges ;  the  clear  atmosphere  lends 
to  them  distinct  outlines,  and  shows  to  perfect  advan- 


106  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

tage  the  intermingling  of  light  and  shade  on  the  suc 
cession  of  hills  and  valleys ;  and  the  spectator  willingly 
lends  an  ear  to  the  fables  of  antiquity.  It  seems  no 
unnatural  idea,  that  the  cheerful  brooks  and  the  invi 
ting  woods  should  have  joyous  nymphs  and  deities  for 
their  guardians.  In  Germany,  the  mountains  are 
carefully  kept  covered  with  the  forest,  whose  sombre 
foliage  heightens  their  aspect  of  gloom ;  or  the  thin 
branches  of  the  pines  make  the  rugged  cliffs  appear 
still  more  bleak  and  desolate ;  the  mists  often  gather 
among  the  ridges,  or  wrap  tiie  highest  peaks  in  clouds ; 
the  productions  of  the  soil,  at  any  considerable  eleva 
tion,  mark  an  inhospitable  zone,  and  indicate  the 
abject  poverty  of  the  inhabitants ;  and  so  a  rude  super 
stition  has  assigned  to  these  northern  fastnesses  the 
homes  of  wizards  and  spectres  ;  the  theatre  of  noctur 
nal  incantations ;  the  general  muster-ground  of  all  the 
motley  and  fiendish  creations  of  a  barbarous  fancy. 

The  history  of  Germany  is  unique,  and  has  had 
its  influence  on  its  poets.  In  many  parts  of  the  coun 
try,  especially  along  the  Rhine  and  the  Neckar,  and  on 
the  heights  .which  command  the  rich  valleys  of  central 
Germany,  the  genius  of  the  middle  ages  is  still  visibly 
hovering  round 

"  Those  gray  but  leafy  walls,  where  ruin  greenly  dwells." 
There  you  have  the  battlements  and  the  massive  watch- 
towers  of  the  baronial  castles,  the  dungeons  and  sub 
terraneous  passages,   the    banqueting  halls   and    tlit, 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  107 

chapels,  which  are  so  often  introduced  into  romance, 
and  which  in  themselves  are  far  more  touching  in  their 
decay,  than  in  the  descriptions  of  any  writer  of  fiction. 
You  may  inspect  the  very  chambers  of  the  secret 
tribunal,  its  instruments  of  torture,  and  its  places  of 
execution;  or  listen  to  the  simple  and  pure  legends 
which  religious  tradition  has  connected  with  the  scenes 
of  greatest  loveliness.  Of  these  mediaeval  relics,  enough 
remains  to  give  clear  conceptions  of  the  manners 
of  those  times,  in  which  the  fierceness  of  chivalrous 
courage  was  tempered  by  the  influence  of  the  Church, 
and  the  harshness  of  the  haughty  knight  contrasted 
with  the  impressive  piety  and  graceful  gentleness  of 
woman.  When  we  are  admitted  to  the  inner  apart 
ments  and  see,  as  it  were,  the  daily  footsteps  of  their 
inhabitants,  we  are  brought  nearer  to  the  incidents  of 
feudal  power ;  the  anxious  lady  of  the  castle  is  still  im 
patiently  hearkening  for  the  return  of  her  lord;  the 
courtyard  yet  rings  with  the  clattering  of  arms,  the 
neighing  of  steeds,  and  the  loud  merriment  of  a  numer 
ous  and  idle  retinue;  the  wine  still  flows  freely  at  the 
hospitable  but  intemperate  banquet ;  the  priest  chastens 
the  fierceness  of  valor  with  mercy,  absolves  the  timid 
soul  from  the  guilt  of  sin,  and  at  the  altar  sanctifies  to 
youthful  prowess  the  possession  of  beauty,  whose  affec 
tion  was  won  by  courage  in  the  field. 


108  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

«  II. 

The  political  organization  of  Germany,  after  many 
changes,  continues  to  be  a  strange  anomaly.  Its  soil, 
occupying  the  very  heart  of  Europe,  has  been  the 
general  battle-field  for  contending  nations,  while  its 
princely  families  have  for  centuries  furnished  wives  to 
more  than  half  the  sovereigns  of  Europe.  Its  climate 
and  soil  vary,  as  you  pass  from  the  barren  sands,  cold 
seasons,  and  level  regions  of  the  North,  to  the  mag 
nificence  of  the  country  watered  by  the  Danube,  or  the 
genial  mildness  and  abundance  that  crown  the  valley 
of  the  Rhine.  Had  its  hardy  population  been  bound 
together  under  one  master,  the  liberty  of  the  old  world 
would  have  been  at  their  mercy.  But  even  the  ap 
pearance  of  an  executive  union  was  destined  to  disap 
pear  in  the  revolutionary  convulsions  of  Europe.  The 
line  of  Roman  emperors  has  ceased,  and  the  phantom 
of  a  crown  is  worn  no  longer.  Letters  are  now  the 
great,  and  we  might  almost  say,  the  only  efficient 
bond  for  the  German  people.  They  have  a  common 
language,  and  a  common  literature  ;  in  other  respects, 
their  governments  are  severally  nearly  as  independent 
as  those  of  the  Italian  States.  The  German  league 
forms  little  beside  a  vain  show.  The  interests  of  the 
several  states  are  heterogeneous,  and  the  connection 
but  nominal;  while  Goethe  is  the  man  of  the  whole 
nation,  a  favorite  at  Vienna,  and  on  the  left  bank  of 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  109 

the  Rhine.  A  strange  condition  of  public  existence  ! 
where  there  are  no  topics  relating  to  the  whole  com 
monwealth,  to  call  forth  an  undivided  expression  of 
feeling ;  and  yet  where  works  of  genius  in  literature 
are  claimed  by  a  population  of  more  than  forty  millions. 

The  inhabitants  of  Germany  are  every  where  distin 
guished  for  kindliness  and  hospitality.  Here  are  the 
strongholds  of  Protestantism ;  and  here  too,  Roman 
Catholics  worship  in  sincerity,  and  delight  in  learning ; 
while  religion  discards  alike  bigotry  and  superstition. 
That  the  fine  arts  are  held  in  high  repute,  is  attested 
by  the  enthusiasm  which  the  Gallery  of  Dresden  con 
tinues  to  excite.  Music  is  so  universally  cultivated, 
that  there  is  no  considerable  town  where  admirable 
concerts  may  not  be  heard  in  private  circles ;  nor  is 
affection  confined  to  Mozart  and  native  composers  ; 
sometimes  the  touching  strains  of  the  elder  artists  are 
revived;  of  Scarlatti,  who  composed  and  played  the 
harp  till  almost  seventy ;  but  still  more  of  Palestrina, 
whose  ashes  were  deemed  worthy  of  a  place  in  St. 
Peter's, — the  Raphael  of  music,  than  whom  no  one  has 
better  known  how  to  express  the  spirit  of  religion  by 
the  harmony  of  sounds. 

The  tendency  of  the  wide  diffusion  of  culture  to 
promote  intellectual  freedom,  is  increased  by  the  fact, 
that  in  the  Northern  and  Central  parts  of  Germany 
there  is  but  one  very  large  city ;  while  Vienna  is  too 
near  the  confines  of  the  ancient  Empire  to  form  a  cen- 


110  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

tre  for  the  mind  of  the  nation.  Indeed,  an  impulse 
greater  than  any  from  Vienna,  has  been  given  by 
Weimar,  a  city  not  so  large,  and  certainly  not  so 
flourishing  as  was  the  town  of  Providence,  or  Cincinnati, 
in  1827.  The  public,  that  invisible,  most  powerful,  im 
partial  personification  of  the  enlightened  opinion  and 
authority  of  a  nation,  is  in  Germany,  as  in  the  United 
States,  to  be  sought  for  every  where.  In  every  village, 
cultivated  minds  are  unfettered  by  the  decisions  of  a 
metropolis,  and  opinions  are  freely  given  and  boldly 
canvassed.  The  fate  of  a  book  published  in  France,  is 
decided  at  Paris ;  but  in  Germany,  the  highest  honors 
in  letters,  as  with  us  the  presidential  dignity,  are  to  be 
won  only  by  obtaining  the  free  suffrages  of  remote,  in 
dependent,  and  equal  districts. 

The  arrangements  of  the  bookselling  interest  are 
analogous.  Leipzig  is  the  great  centre  of  this  busi 
ness  ;  in  Leipzig,  every  book,  be  it  published  where  it 
may,  is  advertised  and  kept  regularly  for  sale.  Nothing 
is  so  sure  of  a  good  reception,  as  to  pretend  to  make 
its  way  by  itself,  independent  of  the  usual  mode  ;  and 
nothing  so  small  or  so  mean,  as  to  be  overlooked.  So 
perfect  is  the  system,  you  may  receive  of  the  smallest 
bookseller,  in  the  smallest  town  that  has  a  bookseller, 
any  work  published  in  any  part  of  the  country,  as 
surely,  as  soon,  and  on  as  good  terms,  as  if  you  had 
applied  to  the  house  most  largely  engaged  in  the 
trade.  Nor  is  it  unworthy  of  remark,  that  the 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  Ill 

common  style  of  printing  is  a  correct,  but  not   an 
expensive  one. 

in. 

There  is  the  more  advantage  in  economical  arrange 
ments  for  distributing  books  through  Germany,  as 
learning  is  there  seldom  attended  by  wealth  and  inde 
pendence.  German  literature  is  the  result  of  the 
moral  energy  of  its  own  votaries.  It  was  fostered 
by  no  Maecenas ;  it  was  cherished  by  no  Augustus ; 
it  was  not  rocked  and  dandled  into  maturity,  but 
struggled  against  opposition,  overcame  indifference, 
and  triumphed  over  contempt.  Even  Leibnitz,  at 
comparatively  a  recent  day,  had  the  weakness  not  to 
be  proud  of  his  countrymen ;  and  Frederic  of  Prus 
sia  could  not  perceive  the  germs  of  that  genius,  which 
in  his  last  years  was  to  bloom  so  abundantly.  It 
was  the  mass  of  the  nation  that  wrought  out  the 
intellectual  salvation  of  the  country;  and  hence  it 
comes,  that  men  of  letters  in  Germany,  emerging  from 
the  middling  class,  have  had  their  sympathies  with  the 
people,  and  have  watched  for  its  liberties.  To  the 
aristocracy,  Germany  owes  little  of  its  intellectual  eleva 
tion. 

Of  this  it  is  proudly  conscious.  It  is  not  of  the 
slightest  moment,  whether  the  presence  of  the  learned  and 
of  those  endowed  with  creative  genius  is  desired  among 
the  possessors  of  political  or  hereditary  rank.  Who 


112  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

asks  if  Homer  kept  company  with  kings?  Who  is 
troubled  because  Milton  would  not,  or  could  not  go  to 
court  ?  An  ingenious  scholar  of  the  North,  whose 
merits  are  above  our  praise,  observes,  as  a  favorable 
characteristic  of  our  time,  that  authors  "  constitute  the 
chosen  ornaments  of  society."  It  may  be  well  for  the 
classes  which  are  privileged  by  fortune,  to  associate  to 
themselves  the  eloquent  who  can  sway  public  opinion, 
or  the  masters  of  science  who  can  produce  new  re 
sources  of  power  or  wealth.  But  the  willing  parasite 
ranks  infinitely  beneath  the  stern  recluse,  whose  mind, 
self-balanced,  finds  repose  in  its  own  strength.  Men 
of  letters  belong  essentially  to  the  laboring  class ;  they 
are  links  in  the  chain  which  binds  together  the  widely 
diversified  elements  of  society.  They  rise  from  the. 
general  mass  and  should  not  separate  from  it.  All  the 
delight  of  vanity  in  counting  the  powerful,  the  wealthy 
or  the  fashionable  as  friends,  should  never  induce  them 
to  resign  their  right  to  equality  on  the  field  of  general 
exertion, — founded,  as  their  claim  is,  on  the  glory  of 
inspiring  the  thoughts,  and  moulding  the  moral  exist 
ence  of  .contemporary  millions.  Such  is  the  sentiment 
of  the  German  universities,  where  a  want  of  manliness 
is  not  forgiven.  A  professor  had  received  a  diploma  of 
nobility.  "  Ah,"  said  his  colleague,  the  mathematician 
Kastner,  on  the  arrival  of  the  parchment ;  "  the  fellow 
rises  on  the  ruins  of  his  like ;  one  foolish  sheep  builds 
his  greatness  on  the  skin  of  another." 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  113 

It  would  be  melancholy  to  follow  the  lives  of  emi 
nent  German  scholars  through  then1  trials  in  the  com 
mencement  of  their  career,  were  it  not  that  we  may 
almost  always  discern  the  hopeful  serenity  proceeding 
from  the  conscious  exercise  of  exalted  intellect.  Many  of 
them  provided  at  first  for  their  subsistence,  by  rilling 
subordinate  stations  in  schools ;  to  many  the  universities 
offered  a  temporary  theatre,  or  a  scene  of  honor  and 
exertion  for  life.  The  admirable  constitution  of  the 
German  universities,  rendered  it  the  more  easy  to  ap 
pear  there  in  the  capacity  of  public  instructor.  In 
them  the  care  of  the  several  branches  of  science,  is 
not  exclusively  intrusted  to  any  one.  The  regular 
professor  is  liable  to  find  competitors  in  any,  whose 
predilections  or  whose  wants  may  lead  them  to  instruct 
in  the  same  department.  The  few  establishments 
where  the  system  of  restraint  prevails,  have  had  little 
or  no  share  in  the  prosperity,  vigorous  industry,  and 
sound  and  impartial  learning,  for  which  the  German 
is  distinguished.  According  to  its  theory  the  busi 
ness  of  teaching  should  be  as  free  as  with  us  the  prac 
tice  of  law.  To  insure  the  co-operation  of  some  one 
eminent  man  in  each  department,  a  regular  professor 
is  appointed,  with  a  very  moderate  salary,  which  ope 
rates  only  as  a  bounty,  to,  influence  his  choice  of 
abode.  His  income  depends  on  his  industry  and 
success,  and  is  as  unlimited  as  his  talents  and  reputa 
tion.  Beside  this,  any  man,  who  can  offer  evidence  of 
8 


114  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

his  competency,  by  an  examination,  a  public  disputa 
tion,  and  a  printed  dissertation,  that  may  serve  as  a 
specimen  of  his  erudition,  is  allowed  to  give  public  or 
private  lessons,  under  the  sanction  of  the  university, 
with  every  facility  to  be  derived  from  the  use  of  its 
fixtures,  and  with  all  the  advantage  of  being  fairly  in 
the  list  of  equal  competition. 

Here,  mark  the  difference  in  our  institutions. 
With  us  all  instruction  in  the  universities  is  monop 
olized;  whether  the  professorship  derives  its  income 
from  fees  paid  by  the  students,  or  endowments,  the 
care  of  each  branch  of  knowledge  is  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  the  person  appointed ;  he  has  no  competitor. 
In  Germany  the  professor  has  his  salary ;  the  right 
to  teach,  and  to  gain  emoluments  from  teaching,  he 
shares  with  all  who  have  the  requisite  qualifications. 
There  are  not  a  few  men  in  America  now,  who  have 
no  connection  with  any  of  our  public  institutions,  and 
who  could  not,  of  their  own  accord  alone,  enter  on  the 
career  of  instruction  in  them,  who  yet  have  a  right,  that 
would  not  be  disputed,  of  teaching  the  sciences  public 
ly,  and  at  will,  in  any  one  of  the  leading  German  uni 
versities.  It  may  be  thought,  that  this  liberty  of 
teaching  is  fruitful  of  endless  strife  and  undignified 
jealousies.  Far  from  it.  It  makes  the  public  teachers 
industrious  and  faithful,  for  otherwise  they  would  soon 
be  out  of  employment ;  and  it  is  no  more  productive 
of  evil,  than  the  custom  among  us,  of  a  young  lawyer 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  115 

or  physician  attempting  to  practise  his  profession  in 
any  place  where  he  thinks  an  opportunity  offers.  The 
established  professors  find  nothing  grievous  in  the 
arrangement.  Now  and  then,  it  is  true,  a  professor 
who  remains  behind  the  age,  or  has  little  talent  as  a 
teacher,  is  doomed  to  see  his  lecture-room  vacant,  and 
offer  instruction  which  no  one  cares  to  receive.  And 
so  it  ought  to  be.  But  a  faithful  man  derives  such  an 
advantage  from  his  regular  appointment,  that  to  him 
his  youthful  competitors  are  but  as  followers  and  coad 
jutors,  who  give  assistance  to  the  students  in  those 
things  for  which  he  has  neither  time  nor  inclination. 
A  competitor  of  equal  years  and  standing  is  unknown, 
except  as  a  professor  likewise  regularly  established; 
for  talent  and  learning  are  not  such  every-day  qualities 
as  to  be  left  unsought  for.  When  a  professor  dies,  or 
is  incapacitated  by  age,  the  public  has  the  benefit  of  being 
able  to  select  a  successor  from  the  crowd  of  young  and 
experienced  aspirants.  And  if,  which  will  sometimes 
happen,  the  regular  professor  grows  idle,  the  science 
does  not  droop ;  the  want  of  instruction  calls  forth  per 
sons  competent  to  give  it ;  and  the  public  is  not  a 
great  loser  by  any  misappropriations,  since  the  receipts 
of  a  teacher  fall  off  with  the  decline  of  his  own  exertions. 
Nor  let  it  be  supposed  that  the  universities,  which 
have  had  so  wide  an  influence  on  the  culture  of  man 
kind,  are  all  of  them  hallowed  by  age.  Gottingen  is 
but  of  the  last  century,  though  it  has  already  gathered 


116  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

the  most  useful  library  in  the  world.  The  foundation 
of  the  University  of  Berlin  belongs  to  the  present  cen 
tury  ;  and  the  number  of  its  students  has,  at  times, 
been  the  largest  on  the  continent.  Within  a  year  of  the 
foundation  of  a  university  at  Munich,  in  1826,  its  success 
was  assured.  But  how  were  those  foundations  laid  ? 
Not  by  building  halls,  but  by  collecting  together  learned 
men,  and  opening  to  them  a  career  of  utility,  honor, 
and  emolument.  Honos  et  prcemia  !  Where  these  are 
dispensed  freely,  learning  will  thrive ;  industry,  un 
checked  in  its  exertions,  and  unlimited  in  its  rewards, 
will  in  this,  as  in  every  thing  else,  lead  to  brilliant  results. 

It  would  not  be  without  interest  to  glance  at  the 
condition  of  our  country,  and  form  an  estimate  of 
the  character  of  men  who  would  become  public  in 
structors,  if  our  institutions  were  put  on  a  similar 
liberal  footing ;  the  relative  number  of  those,  who,  in 
this  country  and  in  Germany,  are  desirous  of  a  public 
education ;  the  influence  of  the  respective  govern 
ments  ;  the  liberality  of  the  community.  But  the  sub 
ject  is  too  important  to  be  treated  incidentally ;  and 
we  will  only  remark,  that  if  our  universities  languish, 
the  cause  does  not  lie  in  the  apathy  of  the  public. 

The  influence  of  the  German  universities  is  incalcu 
lable.  They  fill  the  offices  of  state  with  men  of  cul 
ture  ;  and  there  is  hardly  a  village  where  they  have  not 
domesticated  learning.  They  give  an  earnest  and 
speculative  character  to  the  common  mind;  render 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  117 

the  public  capable  of  appreciating  eminent  merit,  and 
impress  even  on  the  works  of  fiction,  traces  of  an 
intimate  acquaintance  with  other  ages  and  nations.  A 
union  of  strength  of  imagination  with  the  power  of 
various  acquisition,  is  characteristic  of  German  genius. 


IV. 

Letters  are  in  Germany  a  career  to  which  men  are 
regularly  educated.  The  profession  is,  moreover,  a 
thronged  one ;  of  course,  moderate  merit  is  abundant, 
and  distinction  difficult.  There  are  few  instances  of 
scholars  who  have  at  once  risen  to  eminence.  The  first 
years  on  entering  life  are  generally  years  of  hardship 
and  struggle ;  but  where  talent  is  joined  to  industry, 
notoriety  is  at  last  gained,  and  a  moderate  competence 
secured.  There  is  nothing  in  our  country  more  nearly 
analogous  to  this  state  of  things,  than  the  condition 
of  the  profession  of  law.  The  road  of  emulation  is  so 
crowded,  that  it  is  unsafe  to  rest  upon  honors  already 
acquired ;  persevering  diligence  is  necessary  to  pre 
serve  even  a  favorite  from  neglect.  German  scholars 
understand  that  there  is  much  hard  work  to  be  done, 
requiring  time  and  habitual  toil,  from  day  to  day; 
letters  are  not  to  be  the  pastime  of  a  dull  afternoon — 
the  business  over  which  a  man  may  loll  in  an  easy 
chair — the  fashionable  topic  for  a  half  hour's  conver 
sation  in  the  evening ;  they  are  considered,  as  they 


118  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

ought  to  be,  a  most  honorable  and  most  laborious 
occupation  for  life. 

To  these  habits  of  industry  we  must  attribute  the 
profoundness  and  the  universality  which  characterize 
German  literature.  In  almost  every  department  of 
human  knowledge,  it  can  show  some  one  treatise, 
which  may  be  said  to  exhaust  the  subject ;  containing 
not  the  views  of  the  author  merely,  but  a  condensed 
sketch  of  all  that  has  been  written  upon  the  matter  in 
discussion. 

There  is  one  branch  of  speculative  learning,  requir 
ing  rare  sagacity  and  deliberation,  and  cultivated  but 
little  except  in  Germany.  It  is  called  the  Higher 
Criticism,  and  begins  its  office  where  historical  criti 
cism  ends.  Thus,  as  to  the  poems  of  Homer,  all  the 
evidence  which  we  possess,  enables  us  only  to  establish 
the  essential  identity  of  our  printed  copies  with  the 
edition  collated  and  published  by  the  Alexandrian 
scholars.  But  what  changes  may  have  taken  place  in 
the  verse,  previous  to  that  period  ?  What  proof  have 
we  that  the  Alexandrian  scholars  had  an  uncorrupted 
text?  The  same  kind  of  questions  has  been  raised 
in  theological  philology.  It  is  obvious,  that  to  ask 
them  of  the  rash,  is  only  to  throw  open  the  floodgates 
of  literary  doubt.  And  in  fact,  there  has  been  left 
hardly  one  eminent  author  of  antiquity,  who  has  not 
been  cheated  out  of  part  of  his  fame.  Sophocles  is 
made  to  give  up  one  of  his  plays ;  Plato  half  his  dia- 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  119 

logues ;  Anacreon  almost  all  his  odes ;  and  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey  are  declared  to  be  full  of  interpola 
tions,  the  shreds  and  rags  of  audacious  sophists, 
patched  upon  the  simple  and  majestic  robes  of  Ho 
mer.  The  too  great  prevalence  of  this  dangerous 
method  has  given  to  a  branch  of  science  an  air  of 
skepticism,  which  was  not  the  object  of  the  writers, 
and  which  by  no  means  exists  in  the  people. 

The  same  spirit  of  expansive  inquiry,  which  does 
the  business  of  research  so  faithfully,  has  encouraged  a 
universal  interest  in  literary  productions.  The  great 
works  of  other  countries  and  ages  are  not  merely 
known  to  the  man  of  letters,  but  are  for  the  most  part 
nationalized  in  translations  which  give  the  very  form 
and  sentiments,  the  ideas  and  the  tone  of  the  original. 
We  should  mention  Wolf's  German  translation  of  the 
Clouds  of  Aristophanes,  and  William  von  Humboldt's 
of  the  Agamemnon  of  ./Eschylus,  as  admirable  speci 
mens  of  this  kind  of  work,  of  which  Voss  may  be 
called  the  inventor.  Where  such  fidelity  is  required, 
the  style  was  at  first  harsh ;  but  long  and  frequent 
exercise,  and  unceasing  efforts,  have  given  such  flex 
ibility,  copiousness,  and  variety  to  the  German  lan 
guage,  that  many  of  the  greatest  poets  of  all  times,  not 
the  ancients  only,  but  Calderon  and  Shakspeare,  Tasso, 
Ariosto,  and  Dante,  are  reproduced  in  their  own 
measures  and  their  own  style,  and  have  become 
familiar  topics  of  interest  to  all  who  know  how  to 


120  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

beguile  an  hour  with  a  book.  So  numerous  are  the 
translations  from  the  Latin  and  Greek,  that  a  work  in 
two  large  volumes  was  required  for  their  enumeration. 
All  good  versions  meet  with  a  favorable  reception. 
On  the  theatres,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  or  the  Merchant 
of  Venice,  of  the  English  dramatist,  will  draw  as  large 
a  house,  and  gratify  it  as  much,  as  the  Wallenstein,  or 
the  Mary  Stuart  of  Schiller.  Calderon  is  played  as 
often  as  Goethe ;  and  even  a  comedy  of  Terence  is 
sometimes  represented. 

This  enlarged  curiosity  increases  in  an  unparalleled 
manner  the  amount  of  knowledge  in  circulation,  and 
liberates  the  general  mind  from  prejudice,  without 
impairing  the  originality  of  German  inventive  literature. 
The  nation  has  its  own  character,  which  is  preserved 
inviolate,  though  it  is  strengthened  and  fructified  by 
additions  from  many  sources. 

Independence  is  a  characteristic  of  German  scho 
lars.  Controversy  is  carried  on  with  the  utmost  free 
dom.  Where  truth  is  the  object,  it  is  not  deemed 
tolerable,  that  social  considerations  should  check  a 
free  expression  of  thought.  Hence  there  is  a  great 
collision  of  opinions,  as  with  us  in  the  political  world, 
and  every  one  comes  finally  to  be  examined.  It  is  not 
esteemed  unseemly  for  men,  who  reside  in  the  same 
place,  or  are  employed  at  the  same  university,  to  advo 
cate  opposite  views ;  and  the  habit  of  conducting  lit- 
'  erary  researches  in  personal  seclusion,  encourages  the 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  121 

scholar  to  unbiased  inquiry  and  boldness  of  utterance. 
Passing  their  time  in  retirement  and  application,  the 
men  of  letters  have  little  communication  with  each 
other,  or  the  world,  but  by  their  writings.  Separated 
from  society  by  continual  industry,  while  they  yet  hold 
close  intercourse  with  the  public  through  the  press,  in 
timate  relations  of  friendship,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
implacable  hostilities,  may  grow  up  between  those  who 
have  never  heard  the  sound  of  each  other's  voice. 

The  continuance  of  solitary  study  leads  finally  to  a 
state  of  high  mental  excitement.  The  scholar,  within 
the  walls  of  his  closet,  feels  the  impulse  of  passionate  mo 
tives,  the  rush  of  rapid  thought,  and  the  charms  of 
crowded  existence.  He  represents  to  himself  not  a 
distinct,  visible,  and  well-known  audience,  but  a  vast 
and  undefined  mass  of  intelligence  and  numbers,  an  as 
semblage  unlimited  in  its  possible  extent,  and  deriving 
new  dignity  from  the  awful  mystery  in  which  it  is  en 
veloped.  The  German  scholar  writes  under  the  con 
viction  that  his  work  will  fall  under  the  eyes  of  men 
competent  to  judge,  and  his  usual  tranquillity  and 
regularity  make  him  the  more  susceptible  of  this  kind 
of  encouragement. 

.  The  remoteness  in  which  the  German  student  lives 
from  ordinary  interruptions,  favors  devotedness  to  a 
single  object.  The  instances  are  numerous,  of  men 
who  have  consecrated  the  best  part  of  their  lives  to  one 
engrossing  pursuit.  The  science  which  thus  engages 


122  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

the  mind  for  years,  becomes  ever  present  to  then* 
thoughts,  and  is  treated  with  liveliness  as  well  as  learn 
ing.  There  are  some  who  can  describe  to  you  the  an 
tiquities  of  Egypt,  or  the  ruins  of  Persepolis,  who  may 
hardly  know  there  are  republicans  among  the  Andes ; 
others  have  a  better  understanding  of  the  springs  that 
directed  the  Peloponnesian  war,  than  the  French  revo 
lution.  Subjects  of  antiquity  are  treated  as  though 
they  were  present  to  the  senses  ;  and  the  lecturer  on 
Greece  transfers  himself  and  all  his  interests,  for  the 
time,  to  the  scenes  which  he  describes.  The  historian 
of  nature,  too,  lives  in  his  theme ;  he  carries  his  enthu 
siasm  into  the  details  of  physiology,  and  explains  with 
animation  the  wonders  of  the  mineral  kingdom  ;  or,  if 
his  topic  be  the  fossil  remains  of  the  former  creation,  he 
seems  almost  to  throw  his  mind  back  into  that  wonder 
ful  state  of  things,  when  plastic  power  delighted  in 
monstrous  forms,  when  trees  dropped  amber,  and  in 
sects  were  enshrined  in  transparent  tombs. 

With  much  that  is  excellent,  much  extravagance 
has  been  published  in  Germany,  where,  in  the  first  ten 
years  of  this  century,  there  were  more  than  ten  thou 
sand  living  authors.  Sentiments  bold  and  paradoxical, 
inventions  wild  and  wonderful,  sometimes  for  a  season 
engage  the  attention,  which  nothing  but  genius  and 
truth  can  hold  fast.  But  among  so  many  good  intel 
lects,  error  cannot  proceed  far  without  opposition,  nor 
folly  without  exposure.  The  nation  does  not  stand 


GENEEAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  123 

answerable  for  the  aberrations  of  any  of  its  citizens, 
since  it  is  the  first  to  censure  their  perversity. 

The  facility  of  receiving  enjoyment  from  every 
exhibition  of  genius,  is  an  advantage  of  high  value. 
Every  man  has,  indeed,  the  right  to  choose  his  own 
guides  to  the  summit  of  Olympus ;  but  we  question 
the  soundness  of  those  who  deny  that  there  are  more 
ways  than  one.  Such  an  opinion  could  be  explained, 
only  as  the  result  of  a  narrowness  that  willingly 
wears  the  shackles  of  prejudice.  We  all  admire  the 
loveliness  of  our  own  landscape  ;  but  shall  we 
have  no  susceptibility  to  other  charms  ?  Shall  Switz 
erland,  where  the  glaciers  enter  the  fertile  valley, 
and  whiter  and  summer  are  seen  side  by  side, 
have  no  power  to  please  us  ?  Or  a  scene  beneath  a 
southern  sky,  where  the  palm-trees  lift  their  heads  in 
slender  magnificence,  the  forests  glitter  with  the  splen 
dor  of  variegated  plumage,  and  earth  is  gay  with  all 
the  colors  that  gain  their  deep  tints  from  a  tropical 
sun  ?  The  eye  that  communes  with  nature  and  under 
stands  it,  discerns  beauty  in  all  its  forms.  And  shafl 
we,  who  are  certainly  not  incurious  as  to  the  concerns 
of  all  nations,  be  indifferent  to  foreign  letters  ?  Is 
there  no  happy  moment  of  tranquillity  in  which  learn 
ing  may  raise  her  head  fearlessly  and  be  respected,  and 
the  pursuits  of  contemplative  life  be  cheered  by  the 
free  expression  of  general  approbation,  and  quickened 
into  excellence  by  the  benignity  of  an  attentive  nation  ? 


124  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

We  cannot  as  yet  be  said  to  have  a  national  literature ; 
but  we  already  have  the  promise  of  one,  and  the  first 
fruits ;  as  the  literary  character  of  the  country  is  devel 
oped,  it  should  resemble  our  political  institutions  in 
liberality,  and  welcome  excellence  from  every  quarter 
of  the  world. 

THE    REVIVAL   OF    GERMAN   LITERATURE. 
I. 

The  first  use  of  the  German  as  a  written  language, 
is  full  of  interest  for  the  antiquary ;  but,  like  the  re 
searches  into  the  earliest  Anglo-Saxon  literature,  can 
hardly  claim  universal  attention.  No  relic  has  come 
down  to  us,  of  the  bards  of  whom  Tacitus  makes  men 
tion.  The  Edda  furnishes  but  a  very  doubtful  means 
of  ascertaining  what  kind  of  poetry  was  in  vogue  in  the 
days  of  Herman ;  nor  do  any  existing  documents 
explain  the  changes  produced  in  popular  poetry  and 
habits  of  thought  by  the  introduction  of  Christianity. 
Religious  hymns  were  circulated  by  the  monks ;  and 
one  considerable  poem,  the  Life  of  St.  Anno,  by  an 
unknown  author,  will  long  be  preserved,  not  for  its 
merit,  but  as  a  curious  literary  production. 

The  Suabian  period,  in  which  the  romance  of 
chivalry  prevailed,  forms  the  next  stage  in  the  progress 
of  German  poetry.  From  the  twelfth  to  the  fourteenth 
century,  at  least  two  hundred  candidates  for  fame  may 


ITS    PEOGRESS    TILL    1770.  125 

be  counted.  There  are  not  wanting  critics,  who  per 
suade  themselves  that  Homer  hardly  deserves  higher 
esteem  than  the  poets  of  love  and  the  singers  of  the 
Nibelungs.  But  these  derive  their  chief  interest  from 
the  age  in  which  they  were  produced.  The  lyric 
pieces  of  the  period,  which  ring  sweet  and  harmonious 
chimes  on  the  vernal  season,  the  tender  passion,  and 
devotedness  to  woman,  were  mere  lispings  in  the  ac 
cents  of  the  Provencal  muse. 

In  the  fourteenth  century,  the  romantic  poetry 
degenerated ;  and  the  rhymes  of  the  master  workmen 
among  the  several  corporations  of  mechanics  became 
all  that  Germany,  for  three  centuries,  could  exhibit  in 
proof  of  poetic  activity.  The  knights  and  warriors  had 
had  their  day;  it  seemed  but  just,  that  that  of  the 
tradesmen  should  dawn.  Miracles  in  literature  are 
rare ;  the  interminable  strains  of  the  rhyming  artisans 
may  have  beguiled  their  wanderings  as  apprentices,  or 
glorified  their  respective  cities,  or  professions ;  but  they 
contain  little  of  the  spirit  of  poetry. 

Hans  Sachs  was  a  wonder  in  one  sense  of  the  word. 
He  wrote  more  rhymes  than  any  person  of  whom  literary 
history  makes  mention,  with  the  single  exception  of 
Lope  de  Vega.  Of  comedies  and  tragedies,  he  com 
posed  two  hundred  and  eight ;  his  works,  collectively, 
consist  of  six  thousand  and  forty-eight  pieces ;  the  se 
lections  of  his  choicest  productions  fill  three  folio  vol 
umes  ;  and  he  sustained  withal  the  character  of  a 


126  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

reputable  citizen  and  good  shoemaker.  Poets  may 
find  tongues  in  trees  and  wisdom  in  stones,  the 
materials  for  philosophic  verse  in  the  tale  of  a  wagon 
er,  or  the  discourse  of  a  pedler ;  may  illustrate  from 
the  unlettered  hinds  of  a  village  all  the  vices  and  pas 
sions  which  can  disturb  mankind ;  but  it  would  be 
hard  to  discern  beauty  in  a  play,  for  example,  where 
God  is  introduced  as  catechising  Abel  and  his  play 
fellows,  and  the  good  child  answers  correctly,  according 
to  the  orthodox  manual  of  the  day ;  while  Cain  and  his 
party  reply  like  inattentive  boys,  who  have  not  half 
learnt  their  lesson.  In  his  multitudinous  works,  Hans 
Sachs  introduces  heroines  and  heroes  of  classic  an 
tiquity  ;  soldiers  and  statesmen ;  lovers  and  poets ; 
saints  and  devils  ;  men,  angels,  and  women ;  but  they 
all  are  made  on  the  same  last ;  they  all,  both  male  and 
female,  wear  the  costume  of  Nuremberg. 

The  literature  of  Germany  was  destined  to  sink 
still  lower,  before  its  glorious  awakening.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  a  piebald  jargon,  compounded 
of  Latin,  and  Trench,  and  German,  assumed  to  be  the 
fashion;  and  pure  German,  in  spite  of  all  its  native 
wealth  and  energy,  was  derided  as  rustic,  clumsy,  and 
ungenteel.  The  style  of  the  day  travestied  the  borrowed 
words  with  a  domestic  termination,  and  the  labored 
periods,  admitting  here  and  there  the  homely  expres 
sions  of  the  pure  Saxon  dialect,  resembled  some  room 
in  an  old  castle,  where  the  sober  wainscoting,  in  its 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  127 

stern  and  real  beauty,  is  bedizened,  and  aH  but  wholly 
concealed  under  second-hand  finery. 

II. 

A  century  ago,  original  genius  was  still  inactive ; 
the  propensity  to  imitate  predominant ;  and  the  talent 
for  imitating  exceedingly  feeble.  The  intellectual  con 
dition  of  the  empire  resembled  its  political ;  its  native 
energies  were  impaired  by  foreign  alliances,  and  the 
German  language  and  literature  seemed  as  much  neg 
lected  as  the  permanent  interests  of  the  state.  The 
style  of  writing  was  a  diffuse  and  pedantic  barbarism. 
Nor  was  there  any  earnest  of  a  renovation  of  taste  and 
a  revival  of  nationality.  A  foreign  system  cramped 
the  mind,  and  translations  from  the  French  masters 
lost  the  delicacy  and  splendor  which  they  possess  in 
then-  own  idiom.  The  nation  as  a  political  body  had 
ceased  to  have  a  common  feeling ;  in  the  quarrels  of 
Europe,  the  states  of  Germany  were  ranged  on  different 
sides  ;  civil  wars  were  not  objects  of  horror ;  a  com 
munity  of  political  feeling  did  not  exist  even  in  theory. 
Skepticism  had  counteracted  the  former  energy  of  the 
religious  principle.  The  princes  and  German  courts 
were  all  French  in  taste  and  manners  ;  and'  though 
many  were  lavish  of  their  means  in  gaining  new  lux 
uries  and  increasing  their  splendor,  yet  it  never  occurred 
to  them  to  gather  round  their  baby  thrones  the  best 
spirits  of  their  nation,  and  so  to  embalm  their  own 


128  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

memories  in  a  permanent  literature.  Thus  letters  had 
nothing  to  hope  from  the  government,  the  nobility, 
or  the  opulent ;  and  could  find  inspiration  neither  in 
national  taste,  nor  in  the  religious  feeling  of  the  age, 
nor  in  patriotism. 

Of  the  leading  sovereignties  in  Germany,  not  one 
was  administered  in  a  national  spirit.  Motives  of  local 
policy  and  relative  aggrandizement  swayed  the  cabinets. 
The  imperial  constitution  had  become  a  frail  bond  of 
union  for  elements,  which  had  at  no  period  been  well 
consolidated,  and  which  were  now  forcibly  repelling 
each  other ;  tottering  towards  its  end,  it  resembled  a 
decrepit  old  man,  whose  gray  hairs  may  "gain  a  respect 
which  his  strength  cannot  command.  The  influence 
of  Prussia  at  the  diet  made  the  imperial  crown  still 
more  an  empty  pageant.  The  political  alliance  of 
Austria  with  the  Trench,  though  it  ended  in  disasters 
to  the  latter,  was  unfavorable  to  patriotism;  while 
Frederic,  who  had  to  contend  with  a  German  army 
against  the  Bourbons  for  his  existence,  trampled  on 
the  nationality  of  his  subjects,  gathered  round  his 
person  the  writers  of  France,  and  contemplated  the 
literary  occupations  of  his  own  countrymen  with  super 
cilious  indifference  or  contempt.  Circumstances  like 
these  weighed  down  the  spirit  of  native  writers.  A  gen 
eral  languor  characterised  style,  which  had  nothing  of 
natural  passion,  or  even  of  uncouth  energy.  The  noble 
dialect  of  Germany  was  used  without  strength,  dignity 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  129 

or  grace,  while  the  practice  of  reciprocal  indiscriminate 
praise,  that  pestilent  patron  of  mediocrity  in  either  hem 
isphere,  lavished  honors,  as  if  genius  had  been  of 
every-day  growth. 

Light  began  to  dawn  when  public  discussion  be 
came  more  free ;  and  a  Saxon  and  a  Swiss  school  were 
formed,  at  first  in  rivalry,  and  finally  in  declared  hos 
tility.  Of  the  former,  Gottsched  was  the  leader,  at 
Leipzig ;  while  Bodrner,  at  Zurich,  with  Breitinger  for 
his  squire,  challenged  his  adversaries  to  battle.  A 
thirty  years'  war  preceded  the  establishment  of  the  civil 
and  religious  liberties  of  Germany ;  a  thirty  years' 
literary  feud  between  two  men  of  narrow  minds  and 
boundless  vanity,  went  before  its  literary  awakening. 

Of  the  belligerent  parties,  Bodmer  made  the  attack, 
and  for  several  years  Gottsched  acted  on  the  defensive. 
The  Swiss  called  in  the  English  to  his  assistance ;  the 
Saxon  took  the  French  for  auxiliaries.  Bodmer  deemed 
himself  sure  of  victory  and  unlimited  glory,  when  he 
brought  forward  a  translation  of  Milton's  Paradise 
Lost ;  and  we  venerate  the  man  who  could  summon 
Milton  as  his  ally ;  but  Gottsched  damned  the  trans 
lation  with  faint  praise,  and  having,  as  Professor  of 
Eloquence  and  Poetry  in  the  University  of  Leipzig, 
formed  a  literary  circle  in  which  he  was  the  dictator,  he 
issued  a  decree  for  translations  from  the  French,  and 
comedies,  and  tragedies,  in  Alexandrines.  The  rules 
of  criticism  having  been  established,  poems  were  writ- 
9 


130  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

ten,  as  if  to  illustrate  a  principle.  Fame,  "  the  bright 
guerdon,"  is  distributed  by  favor.  Many  a  man  has 
suffered  martyrdom  for  his  faith ;  but  John  Rogers 
alone  found  his  way  into  the  Primer.  To  Bodmer 
and  Gottsched,  circumstances  secure  a  conspicuous 
place  in  the  history  of  letters. 

Bodmer,  born  1698,  was  of  narrow  intellect  and 
limited  taste.  His  mind  was  fitted  out  with  some 
knowledge  of  English  literature.  Of  the  genius  of 
Shakspeare,  he  had,  indeed,  no  conception ;  but  he 
was  firm  in  the  love  of  Milton.  He  detested  music ; 
and  rhyme  was  a  greater  offence  to  him  than  wine  to  a 
faithful  Mussulman.  Himself  destitute  of  humor  and 
of  wit,  he  questioned  their  value.  He  held  the  poetic 
diction  of  Homer  inferior  to  his  own ;  and  would  have 
thought  himself  slighted,  had  his  tragedies  been  called 
only  equal  to  those  of  ^Eschylus  and  Sophocles ;  though 
his  imagination  was  as  dry  as  the  leaves  of  last  year. 
At  first  he  was  a  translator  and  critic,  and  tried  to 
compete  with  his  Leipzig  rival ;  but  when  almost  fifty 
years  old,  he  was  smit  with  the  desire  of  becoming  an 
epic  poet,  and  chose  Noah  for  his  theme.  Something 
he  contrived  to  borrow  from  Milton  and  others ;  but 
he  who  could  not  write  prose  agreeably,  attains  the 
maximum  of  ridiculousness  in  his  catalogue  of  the 
beasts,  whose  well-arranged  columns  he  marches  into 
the  Ark  in  hobbling  hexameters. 

Bodmer  has   the  merit   of  having  revived  some 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  131 

earlier  German  works,  that  were  falling  into  oblivion. 
His  adversary,  Gottsched,  born  two  years  after  him,  was 
a  German  at  heart,  and  his  love  of  country  is  the  best 
thing  about  him.  This  led  him  to  cherish  his  own  lan 
guage,  and  to  plead  for  its  purity.  His  poetry  is  made 
up  of  common-places,  which  he  could  pour  out  like 
water ;  and  he  was  as  indefatigable  as  a  mill-stream, 
that  runs  even  on  holidays.  In  Leipzig  his  authority 
became  supreme ;  and  elsewhere,  his  tragedies  were 
acted  with  applause.  His  Cato,  a  tame  imitation  of 
Addison's,  passed  through  ten  editions.  He  rebuked 
all  levity  of  manner ;  abominated  operas ;  did  his  utmost 
to  banish  Harlequin  from  the  stage ;  and  passed  judg 
ment  on  Shakspeare  as  a  complete  barbarian.  When 
he  was  attacked,  his  self-complacent  pedantry  was  a 
shield,  that  the  keenest  weapons  of  his  foes  could  not 
pierce. 

His  wife  surpassed  him  in  talent.  The  daughter 
of  an  eminent  physician,  she  had,  in  her  childhood, 
been  employed  to  copy  for  her  father.  In  her  seven 
teenth  year,  Gottsched  became  acquainted  with  her, 
and  offered  her  all  the  love  of  which  he  was  capable. 
Their  courtship  lasted  for  five  years ;  and  their  mar 
riage  was  a  barren  one,  so  that  she  had  none  of  the 
consolations  of  her  sex.  She  was  his  assistant  rather 
than  his  wife ;  their  union  was  but  a  literary  partner 
ship.  He  made  her  read  Greek  and  Latin  authors  of  the 
most  heterogeneous  character,  and  in  the  original  Ian- 


132  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

guages ;  concealed  behind  a  partition  of  tapestry,  she 
was  compelled  to  listen,  as  he  screamed  out  his  lec 
tures,  and  to  take  notes  of  them ;  she  carried  on 
his  correspondence  with  public  men  and  scholars ;  she 
daily  translated  for  the  press ;  she  wrote  for  him  tra 
gedies  and  comedies,  reviews  and  prefaces ;  in  the  divi 
sion  of  labor,  he  composed  the  elaborate  treatises,  and 
she  defended  her  husband  from  ridicule  in  epigrams. 
She  had,  moreover,  to  write  the  titles  of  books  on  the 
backs  of  some  thousands  of  volumes  in  the  professor's 
library.  All  that  she  accomplished  under  such  aus 
pices,  is  of  little  value.  More  feeling  and  nature  are 
expressed  in  her  private  letter  to  a  female  friend,  to 
whom,  about  three  months  before  her  death,  she 
writes : — "  I  have  sad  news  to  tell  you ;  I  am  losing 
my  eyesight  almost  entirely.  Oh,  how  I  long  to  hear 
the  hour  of  my  dissolution  strike.  Do  you  ask  for  the 
cause  of  my  sickness?  Here  it  is.  Twenty-eight 
years  of  unbroken  labor,  secret  sorrow,  and  tears 
without  number,  which  God  only  has  seen  flow." 

Of  one  man,  who,  at  this  early  period  strove  for 
the  honors  of  verse,  we  must  speak  with  veneration. 
Albert  Haller,  a  native  of  Berne,  a  pupil  of  Boerhaave, 
the  most  eminent  physiologist  of  his  day,  not  only  ap 
plied  himself  to  almost  every  department  of  learning, 
but  in  his  youth  wrote  pastorals,  and  an  epic  of  some 
thousands  of  lines.  These  he  threw  into  the  flames 
in  his  twentieth  year.  His  poem  of  the  Alps  was 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  133 

composed  by  him  while  yet  a  minor.  As  a  phy 
sician  in  Berne,  he  was  not  very  successful ;  but  Miinch- 
hausen,  the  father  of  the  Georgia  Augusta,  invited 
him  to  Gottingen.  There  he  awakened  a  public  inter 
est  in  the  youthful  university,  and  established  and  per 
fected  the  collections  requisite  for  a  high  school  of 
learning.  After  he  had  been  professor,  seventeen  years, 
he  longed  for  his  own  country  again,  the  canton,  which 
is  filled  with  the  brightest  and  boldest  scenes  that 
Europe  can  show ;  where  brooks,  that  come  from  dis 
solving  snows,  leap  down  precipices  of  so  many  hun 
dred  feet,  that  they  are  dissipated  into  spray  as  they 
fall ;  where  flowers  grow  by  the  side  of  masses  of  ice, 
and  the  mountains  produce  the  plants  of  coldest  re 
gions  just  above  the  ripening  grape  :  he  longed  for  his 
native  city,  where  one  man  in  four  attains  the  age  of 
seventy ;  where  the  eye  embraces  from  the  hills,  in  one 
view,  the  brightest  glories  of  the  crowded  Alps ;  and, 
looking  beyond  the  fertile  fields  of  the  immediate 
vicinity,  beholds  in  the  distance  the  -glaciers,  as  they 
sparkle  in  the  sunbeams.  In  Gottingen,  he  had  every 
wish  for  the  advancement  of  his  science  gratified ;  but 
then  he  was  in  the  midst  of  the  ambitious  and  conten 
tious,  whose  clashing  interests  did  not  fail  to  breed 
dislikes ;  and  so  his  mountain  land  won  him  again  to 
independence.  Being  still  -in  the  best  years  of  man 
hood,  on  his  return  to  Berne,  he  gave  himself  up  in 
part  to  study,  and  in  part  to  his  countrymen.  To  the 


134  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

learned  periodical,  issued  at  Gottingen,  lie  continued 
to  contribute,  till  finally  the  number  of  his  articles  in 
that  work  amounted  to  twelve  thousand.  In  practical 
life,  he  was  always  honored  with  the  magistracy ;  he 
devised  a  plan  for  an  orphan-house ;  he  reformed  the 
medical  police ;  he  took  care  that  the  poor  should  have 
good  salt  to  their  bread ;  he  settled  dissensions  about 
boundaries  between  the  cantons ;  and  all  the  while 
continued  to  advance  natural  science  by  his  labors, 
and  conducted  a  wide  correspondence  in  the  pol 
ished  dialects  of  Europe.  Meantime,  the  Univer 
sities  of  Halle  and  of  Gottingen  solicited  him  to  be 
their  chancellor ;  the  learned  societies  of  Europe  vied 
in  electing  him  their  associate ;  the  Russian  govern 
ment  desired  to  win  him  for  St.  Petersburgh ;  the 
King  of  Sweden  decorated  him  with  the  order  of  the 
Polar  Star ;  and  Joseph  II.  sought  him  out  in  his  re 
tirement.  But  Haller  was,  in  the  common  sense, 
neither  ambitious  nor  happy.  His  spirit  never  knew 
the  joyousness  of  content.  In  his  seventieth  year, 
he  escaped  from  the  sorrows  of  a  melancholy  temper 
ament  and  a  sickly  frame ;  having,  a  twelvemonth  before 
his  death,  published  the  eleventh  edition  of  his  poems. 
The  praise  of  Haller  extends  as  far  as  the  science 
which  he  advanced.  In  his  poems  he  writes  from  his 
own  warm  feelings  ;  and  Ins  earnestness  communicates 
to  his  verse  an  air  of  solemnity.  His  style  is  not 
uniformly  correct ;  and  Ms  manner  seldom  has  freedom 


ITS    PRO  GEES  S    TILL    1770.  135 

and  ease.  His  "  Alps  "  had  no  model  in  the  literature 
of  his  language ;  the  descriptions  are  just,  but  some 
times  too  minute  and  trivial ;  noble  reflections  are  in 
terspersed  amidst  description. 

in. 

A  greater  and  a  better  impulse  was  given  to  the 
national  mind  by  Klopstock,  who,  having  remained  the 
usual  season  at  the  celebrated  school  of  Schul- 
pforte,  and  then  pursued  his  studies  as  a  theologian  at 
Jena,  and  afterwards  at  Leipzig,  published,  while  yet  in 
his  twenty-fourth  year,  the  first  three  cantos  of  a  poem 
which  will  never  be  forgotten.  At  once  a  new  pros 
pect  seemed  opening  for  German  letters.  In  1748, 
the  poet,  though  still  at  an  early  age,  covered  with  the 
glory  of  unbounded  success,  went  as  a  teacher  in  a 
private  family  to  Langensalza ;  where  he  became  deeply 
enamored  of  one  who  did  not  return  his  affection. 
The  nation  heard  with  astonishment,  that  there  lived 
the  German  maid  that  could  be  indifferent  to  the  suit 
of  the  bard  of  the  Messiah,  to  whom  the  laurel  had 
been  decreed  by  acclamation.  Letters  were  sent  from 
remote  parts,  conjuring  her  to  yield  her  heart,  and  be 
come  the  inspiring  muse  of  her  lover.  All  in  vain ; 
and  Klopstock,  who  was  deeply  chagrined,  in  the 
days  of  his  dignity  remembered  his  unrequited  passion 
as  a  sinful  weakness.  His  fancy  lost  something  of  its 


136  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

delicacy,  and  his  manner  assumed  more  of  stateliness. 
From  that  time  he  appears  officially  as  the  ambassador 
of  the  muses,  the  representative  of  morality,  and  the 
example  for  the  nation. 

The  summer  of  1750  he  passed  in  Switzerland,  on 
Bodmer's  invitation,  and  universal  veneration  wel 
comed  him  to  Zurich ;  but  the  favor  of  the  king  of 
Denmark  called  him  to  Copenhagen,  where  he  resided 
for  twenty  years ;  in  1771  he  established  himself  in  the 
republic  of  Hamburgh.  Age  could  not  chill  his  love 
of  liberty.  With  a  zeal  like  that  of  youth  he  partici 
pated  in  the  enthusiasm  excited  by  the  French  Revolu 
tion,  before  it  soiled  itself  with  blood.  He  died  in 
1803  ;  and  his  funeral  was  celebrated  with  a  magnifi 
cence  never  before  vouchsafed  to  a  poet's  obsequies. 
It  took  place  on  a  fine  day,  in  the  last  of  March; 
thousands  and  thousands  thronged  to  gaze ;  and  every 
honor  which  could  be  shown  by  the  citizens  and  the 
authorities  of  two  opulent  mercantile  cities,  was  mani 
fested,  as  his  body  was  carried  from  Hamburgh  to  a 
village  near  Altona,  and  buried  by  the  side  of  his  wife. 

Klopstock's  manners  were  simple  ;  but  he  had  the 
carriage  of  a  pattern-man,  as  though  the  whole  world 
had  an  interest  in  his  saying  or  doing  nothing  improper. 
Of  friendship  he  made  a  sort  of  idolatry ;  and  his  sin 
cere  heart  and  warm  fancy  sometimes  invested  ordinary 
men  with  qualities  of  excellence.  His  muse  never  had 
cause  to  blush  for  him,  either  for  want  of  purity,  or  of 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  137 

honesty ;  and  his  life  was  as  spotless  as  his  verse.  As 
it  regards  the  great,  he  was  too  upright  to  flatter. 
He  had  enemies ;  but  he  went  always  his  own  way, 
and  never  turned  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  to  answer 
an  adversary.  When  younger  poets  began  to  render  his 
supremacy  questionable,  he  neither  encouraged  nor  cen 
sured  them. 

Klopstock's  merit  for  the  influence  he  had  on  Ger 
man  literature,  and  his  general  merit  for  us  all,  as  a 
poet,  are  very  different  things.  In  the  first  respect,  we 
give  him  the  highest  place  among  his  countrymen. 
When  mediocrity  was  extolled,  he  tauglit  the  way  to 
nobler  creations ;  he  reformed  the  measure  of  German 
poetry ;  he  led  to  the  abolition  of  the  Alexandrine 
verse,  so  inconsistent  with  the  genius  of  his  language ; 
he  introduced  into  letters,  patriotism,  with  a  genuine 
love  of  religion. 

Klopstock  expressed  the  spirit  of  romantic  poetry 
in  classic  forms.  His  measures  and  his  severity  of 
taste  were  ancient ;  the  sentiment  and  the  tone  were 
peculiar  to  the  moderns.  He  is  the  poet  of  feeling ; 
but  it  is  feeling,  over  which  a  manly  understanding 
keeps  guard.  His  mind  never  plays  with  alluring 
forms,  that  charm  the  senses ;  he  is  uniformly  earnest. 
He  despised  rhyme,  though  his  best  hymns  are  in 
rhyme.  He  is  always  national,  and  full  of  enthusiasm, 
and  yet  he  is  in  no  respect  a  bard  of  the  people ;  we 
mention  it  not  to  his  praise.  He  is  so  refined,  that  he 


136  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

delicacy,  and  his  manner  assumed  more  of  stateliness. 
From  that  time  he  appears  officially  as  the  ambassador 
of  the  muses,  the  representative  of  morality,  and  the 
example  for  the  nation. 

The  summer  of  1750  he  passed  in  Switzerland,  on 
Bodmer's  invitation,  and  universal  veneration  wel 
comed  him  to  Zurich ;  but  the  favor  of  the  king  of 
Denmark  called  him  to  Copenhagen,  where  he  resided 
for  twenty  years ;  in  1771  he  established  himself  in  the 
republic  of  Hamburgh.  Age  could  not  chill  his  love 
of  liberty.  With  a  zeal  like  that  of  youth  he  partici 
pated  in  the  enthusiasm  excited  by  the  French  Revolu 
tion,  before  it  soiled  itself  with  blood.  He  died  in 
1803 ;  and  his  funeral  was  celebrated  with  a  magnifi 
cence  never  before  vouchsafed  to  a  poet's  obsequies. 
It  took  place  on  a  fine  day,  in  the  last  of  March; 
thousands  and  thousands  thronged  to  gaze ;  and  every 
honor  which  could  be  shown  by  the  citizens  and  the 
authorities  of  two  opulent  mercantile  cities,  was  mani 
fested,  as  his  body  was  carried  from  Hamburgh  to  a 
village  near  Altona,  and  buried  by  the  side  of  his  wife. 

Klopstock's  manners  were  simple ;  but  he  had  the 
carriage  of  a  pattern-man,  as  though  the  whole  world 
had  an  interest  in  his  saying  or  doing  nothing  improper. 
Of  friendship  he  made  a  sort  of  idolatry ;  and  his  sin 
cere  heart  and  warm  fancy  sometimes  invested  ordinary 
men  with  qualities  of  excellence.  His  muse  never  had 
cause  to  blush  for  him,  either  for  want  of  purity,  or  of 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  137 

honesty ;  and  his  life  was  as  spotless  as  his  verse.  As 
it  regards  the  great,  he  was  too  upright  to  flatter. 
He  had  enemies ;  but  he  went  always  his  own  way, 
and  never  turned  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  to  answer 
an  adversary.  When  younger  poets  began  to  render  his 
supremacy  questionable,  he  neither  encouraged  nor  cen 
sured  them. 

Klopstock's  merit  for  the  influence  he  had  on  Ger 
man  literature,  and  his  general  merit  for  us  all,  as  a 
poet,  are  very  different  things.  In  the  first  respect,  we 
give  him  the  highest  place  among  his  countrymen. 
When  mediocrity  was  extolled,  he  tauglit  the  way  to 
nobler  creations ;  he  reformed  the  measure  of  German 
poetry ;  he  led  to  the  abolition  of  the  Alexandrine 
verse,  so  inconsistent  with  the  genius  of  his  language; 
he  introduced  into  letters,  patriotism,  with  a  genuine 
love  of  religion. 

Klopstock  expressed  the  spirit  of  romantic  poetry 
in  classic  forms.  His  measures  and  his  severity  of 
taste  were  ancient ;  the  sentiment  and  the  tone  were 
peculiar  to  the  moderns.  He  is  the  poet  of  feeling ; 
but  it  is  feeling,  over  which  a  manly  understanding 
keeps  guard.  His  mind  never  plays  with  alluring 
forms,  that  charm  the  senses  ;  he  is  uniformly  earnest. 
He  despised  rhyme,  though  his  best  hymns  are  in 
rhyme.  He  is  always  national,  and  full  of  enthusiasm, 
and  yet  he  is  in  no  respect  a  bard  of  the  people ;  we 
mention  it  not  to  his  praise.  He  is  so  refined,  that  he 


i40  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

volumes  of  his  works.  They  never  will  be  well  trans 
lated  ;  for  it  would  almost  be  as  easy  to  write  tliem 
anew. 

IV. 

Klopstock  regenerated  the  poetry  of  Germany ;  the 
first  writer  of  the  eighteenth  century,  whose  manner  in 
prose  made  an  epoch,  is  Gotthold  Ephraim  Lessing. 
He  dethroned  the  idols  that  men  were  worshipping ; 
he  taught  a  bolder,  more  decisive,  more  profound  way 
of  criticism,  and  gave  an  example  of  a  style,  which  in 
its  kind  has  not  been  excelled. 

The  son  of  poor  and  most  religious  parents,  he 
passed  a  childhood  of  self-denial,  under  a  strict  system 
of  domestic  discipline.  At  an  early  age  he  was  removed 
to  the  school  of  Meissen,  and  became  an  excellent 
scholar  in  the  ancient  languages  and  in  the  mathe 
matics.  He  went  from  Meissen  to  the  University  of 
Leipzig ;  where,  profiting  by  the  instructions  of  no  pro 
fessor  but  Ernesti,  he  fell  into  company  which  it 
alarmed  his  parents  to  hear  that  he  kept,  took  a  lively 
interest  in  the  theatre,  actually  wrote  for  the  stage,  and 
remained  without  any  fixed  pursuit.  Weary  of  Leipzig, 
he  removed  to  Berlin,  where  he  engaged  in  literary 
labors  of  minor  importance.  From  thence,  to  please 
his  parents,  he  went  to  Wittenberg,  where  he  faithfully 
pursued  his  studies.  Having  no  source  of  income  but 
his  literary  labors,  he  next  acquired  a  reputation  as 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  141 

a  critic,  which  made  him  feared  in  all  Germany.  Tired 
of  Wittenberg,  he  returned  to  Berlin,  where  Mendel 
sohn  and  Nicolai  were  his  friends,  and  he  produced  a 
tragedy  on  a  subject  of  common  life.  After  an  un 
satisfactory  engagement  as  a  travelling  companion  to 
the  son  of  a  merchant,  he  went  to  Berlin  again,  and 
supported  himself  by  his  writings.  For  a  season,  he 
was  employed  actively  in  Silesia.  From  Berlin  he  was 
induced  to  go  to  Hamburgh,  as  a  dramatic  critic. 
From  thence  he  was  transferred  to  Wolfenbiittel, 
as  Librarian ;  and  he  died  in  the  service  of  Bruns 
wick. 

Lessing  was  distinguished  for  a  clear  understand 
ing,  accurate  and  immense  erudition,  and  a  rapid  mind. 
He  took  nothing  on  trust ;  and,  least  of  all,  followed 
the  impulse  of  feeling  or  of  fancy.  During  his  whole 
life,  he  never  had  a  dream ;  and  a  story  is  told 
of  him,  that,  when  a  friend,  who  was  travelling  with 
him  on  a  fine  day  in  spring,  expressed  rapture  at  the 
beauty  of  the  season,  he  replied,  that  he  envied  the 
sensation  which  he  could  not  share.  He  described  him 
self  to  be  a  critic,  not  a  poet.  His  words  always  have 
a  plain  meaning.  Sometimes  he  throws  out  his  ideas 
in  a  style  that  flows  like  a  torrent ;  and  sometimes  en 
forces  them  by  imagery,  always  significant,  and  often 
beautiful.  His  imagination,  which  never  dazzled,  was 
fertile  in  illustration,  so  that  his  style  is  eminently 
epigrammatic.  He  had  a  passionate  love  for  what 


142  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

seemed  truth ;  and,  so  far  from  fearing  the  harsh 
censures  of  others,  he  delighted  in  opposition.  The 
tendency  of  some  of  his  writings  is  unquestionably 
skeptical ;  but  his  opponents  were  not  without  bigotry, 
and  no  one  came  forward  to  cope  with  him  with  his 
own  weapons.  His  conflicts  were  numerous ;  and  no 
man,  that  ever  engaged  with  him,  came  off  unhurt. 
Dean  Swift  was  not  more  tremendous  in  Irish  contro 
versies.  Indeed,  in  the  most  famous  of  Lessing's 
battles,  he  so  cut  in  pieces  the  leathern  shield  of 
pedantry  and  prescription,  that  his  enemies  were 
obliged  to  gag  him  by  an  edict  from  his  government. 

If,  from  a  general  criticism,  we  turn  to  a  consider 
ation  of  the  several  works  of  Lessing,  we  have  to  con 
sider  him  as  a  dramatic  writer,  a  critic,  and  a  writer  on 
subjects  of  philosophy  and  theology. 

Of  his  dramas,  Minna  von  Barnkelm  appeals  to 
national  sympathies,  having  in  the  background  the  inci 
dents  of  the  seven  years'  war. 

Emilia  Galotti,  a  tragedy  in  prose,  is  the  finest  of 
its  kind,  in  the  German,  or  in  any  language.  But  this 
kind  is  not  the  highest.  The  tale  of  the  Roman  Vir- 
ginius  is  made  to  wear  the  mask  of  modern  Italy,  so 
that  it  becomes  a  protest  against  the  vices  of  the 
petty  princes,  not  of  that  peninsula  only,  but  of  Ger 
many.  Thus  it  gains  a  political  interest.  In  the  Ro 
man  story,  the  knife  that  is  drawn,  reeking  with 
blood,  from  the  wound  of  Virginia,  has  a  consecrated 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  143 

power,  to  cut  asunder  the  bonds  in  which  the%  nation 
was  held.  Rome's  liberty  reconciles  us  to  Virginia's 
martyrdom.  In  Emilia  Galotti,  no  revolution  breaks 
out,  and  there  is  nothing  but  the  moral  beauty  of 
the  sacrifice,  to  relieve  the  impression  of  horror  at  the 
sad  catastrophe, 

Lessing  is  the  most  distinguished  critic  of  his 
nation,  whether  we  regard  his  manner,  his  originality, 
or  his  influence.  His  greatest  work  in  this  depart 
ment  is  his  series  of  essays  on  the  drama,  published 
during  the  period  of  his  connection  with  the  stage  at 
Hamburgh.  The  French  taste  was  at  that  time  preva 
lent  in  Germany.  Frederic  II.  did  not  attack  the 
French  armies  more  boldly  than  Lessing  the  French 
dramas ;  denying  the  identity  of  the  ancient  Grecian 
and  the  modern  French  dramatic  art.  August  Schlegel 
has  but  developed  the  ideas  of  the  great  master.  Les- 
sing's  error  was,  that  he  wished  to  make  the  stage  too 
natural ;  thus  preparing  the  way  for  a  flood  of  tame 
copies  of  common  incidents.  But  he  gave  back  to 
the  Germans  their  intellectual  liberty  in  matters  of 
imagination,  especially  the  drama ;  he  drew  the  atten 
tion  of  his  countrymen  to  Calderon  and  Spanish  liter 
ature  ;  he  gave  a  masterly  analysis  and  defence  of  the 
critical  principles  of  Aristotle,  whose  name  he  declared 
he  would  not  have  regarded,  had  not  the  reasons  of 
the  Grecian  sage  possessed  such  cogent  force;  and 
finally,  he  set  in  a  strong  light -the  genius  of  Shak- 


144  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

speare,  at  a  time  when  it  was  a  rare  thing,  in  any 
country,  to  award  the  highest  honors  in  the  drama 
to  the  greatest  of  masters. 

The  theological  controversies  of  Lessing  embittered 
his  last  days.  He  himself  was  opposed  to  all  positive 
religious  institutions.  His  view  was,  that  religious 
truth  is  eternal,  and  knows  no  change ;  that  by  de 
grees  the  human  mind  has  advanced,  and  is  still 
advancing  in  this,  as  in  every  branch  of  knowledge ; 
that  a  revelation  is  a  truth,  communicated  to  those 
not  yet  quite  ripe  to  receive  it ;  that  it  is  a  step 
towards  perfection,  to  get  rid  of  those  prepossessions 
which  incline  to  one  form  more  than  another;  since 
religion  is  above  them  all- — without  division  and 
without  change. 

When  Lessing,  by  the  superiority  of  his  own 
talents,  was  crushing  his  feeble  antagonist,  he  himself 
was  silenced  by  an  effort  of  despotic  authority.  For 
this,  and  the  abuse  he  received,  he  determined  to 
"play  the  theologians  a  trick,"  and  wrote  his  last, 
most  perfect  drama,  Nathan  the  Wise.  It  is  a  didactic 
drama,  of  which  the  moral  is  borrowed  from  a  story  of 
Boccaccio,  whose  wealth  has  fed  a  hundred  beggars. 

*  C2C-J 

The  scene  is  in  Jerusalem  at  the  period  of  the  crusades  ; 
and  the  poet  introduces  the  most  various  personages ; 
the  chivalrous  Saladin,  the  lord  of  Mussulmen  ;  the 
wise  and  wary  Nathan,  the  great  leader  of  the  Jews ; 
the  Christian  patriarch ;  a  dervise  from  the  remote 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  145 

East ;  a  Knight  Templar ;  a  Christian  female  slave ; 
and  a  heroine,  who  was  born  a  Christian,  but  had  been 
educated  in  Nathan's  house  without  any  particular  re 
ligion.  Now,  great  as  is  the  dramatic  interest,  the 
philosophical  object  is  the  leading  one ;  and  that  is,  to 
represent  these  several  men  as  going  wrong,  and  doing 
unjustifiable  things,  whenever  they  follow  their  own 
particular  faith ;  and  as  gaining  on  our  admiration,  in 
the  degree  in  which  they  sacrifice  their  exclusiveness. 
In  so  far  as  a  grand  lesson  of  toleration  is  inculcated, 
and  the  virtues  of  humanity,  which  may  bloom  on  the 
Ganges  or  in  Syria,  in  Jew  or  Mussulman,  in  the  Deist 
or  the  Christian,  are  concerned,  the  tendency  of  the  play 
is  a  noble  one.  But  more  is  designed ;  the  writer  wishes 
not  only  to  show,  that  generous  feelings  may  be  pro 
duced  in  any  clime,  but  that  all  forms  of  religion 
counteract  those  feelings — that  the  Jew,  and  the 
Turk,  and  the  Christian,  must  each  throw  away  the 
peculiarities  of  his  faith,  as  a  dangerous  prejudice. 
And  under  this  point  of  view,  Nathan  the  Wise 
merits  the  severest  reprehension ;  for  there  is  not 
one  particle  of  the  winning  graces  of  Christianity 
in  the  only  Christian  characters  whom  he  introduces. 
The  female  menial  is  a  simpleton,  that  hardly  knows 
more  of  her  religion  than  that  she  has  been  bap 
tized;  the  Knight  Templar  is  a  splenetic,  disap 
pointed  young  man ;  brave,  but  misanthropical ;  hon 
est,  but  rash ;  and  the  patriarch  is  a  bloodhound,  who 
10 


146  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

thinks  no  more  of  burning  a  Jew  than  of  whipping  a 
thief. 

Lessing's  merits  were  negative.  He  was  strong  to 
pull  down,  not  to  build  up.  He  showed  the  insuffi 
ciency  of  the  rules  of  criticism  prevalent  in  his  country ; 
but  he  left  it  for  his  successors  to  establish  a  better ; 
he  unveiled  the  defects  in  the  works  which  then  en 
joyed  popular  admiration ;  but  he  erected  no  perfect 
model  in  any  branch  of  poetic  invention,  and  his 
theory  of  the  drama  is  a  perverse  one ;  he  waged  war 
on  bigotry  and  blind  faith,  but  he  did  not  leave  reli 
gion  on  a  firmer  foundation.  In  short,  he  attacked  ad 
mirably  ;  he  opposed  triumphantly ;  but  he  has  added 
little  to  the  sum  of  human  happiness  and  intelligence. 


v. 

The  contemporary  and  coadjutor  of  Lessing  and 
Klopstock  in  revolutionizing  German  taste,  was  Wie- 
land,  whose  career  is  psychologically  curious.  He 
began  as  a  religious  enthusiast,  and  afterwards 
paraded  the  pretensions  of  a  free-thinker ;  he  was 
in  youth  prudish,  and  in  his  ideas  of  love  eminently 
Platonic ;  and  bye  and  bye  he  thought  it  manly  to  be 
able  to  tell  a  coarse  story  without  blushing. 

In  this  second  period,  he  drew  his  system  of  phi 
losophy  partly  from  Shaftesbury,  partly  from  Helvetius, 
commending  virtue,  as  a  sort  of  heroism,  not  to  be 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  147 

expected  from  every  body,  but  to  be  admired  when 
it  appeared ;  and  esteeming  morality,  because  it  is 
graceful  and  becoming.  Having  been  a  visionary, 
he  turned  satirist ;  and  having  himself  paraded  re 
ligious  sentiment  like  Bodmer,  he  mocked  at  enthu 
siasm  and  ridiculed  his  master.  But  as  plants  cannot 
thrive  without  the  pure  air  of  heaven,  so  true  poetry 
cannot  put  forth  its  glory  without  the  "  breath  of  God 
in  the  soul  of  man."  We  venerate  the  erudition  of 
Wieland,  but  in  respect  to  the  moral  of  his  writings,  he 
seems  to  us  like  a  snail,  creeping  over  the  best  things 
in  life,  and  leaving  them  odious  by  the  slime  which 
marks  his  progress.  The  agony  of  doubt  in  minds  of 
real  energy  deserves  forbearance ;  but  quiet  skepticism 
is  a  result  of  intellectual  indolence,  or  weakness ;  and 
contempt  falls  on  those  who  make  a  base  "  abandon 
ment  of  reason  "  in  Epicurean  employments.  Wieland's 
life  was  regular,  but  speculatively  he  yielded  himself  up 
to  the  influence  of  his  animal  nature,  and  then  rattling 
his  chains,  pretended  to  think  their  clanking  was  me 
lody,  and  poetry,  and  wisdom. 

An  agreeable  style  in  narration,  a  pleasant  cheer 
fulness  of  mind,  a  great  extent  and  variety  of  acquisi 
tions,  a  literary  industry  which  kept  him  on  the  theatre 
of  action  full  sixty  years,  are  claims  to  praise  which  we 
readily  acknowledge  belong  to  Wieland.  He  writes 
gracefully,  but  without  vigor;  his  style  is  diffuse,  so 
that  good-natured  critics  greeted  his  birthday  with 


148  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

the  wish,  that  the  thread  of  his  life  might  be  spun  out 
as  long  as  his  ideas  in  his  own  periods ;  his  subjects 
have  no  real  variety ;  his  manner  of  treating  them  is 
devoid  of  nobleness  and  dignity.  A  young  man  in 
conflict  with  the  temptations  of  life,  is  his  perpetual 
theme,  repeated  with  wearisome  prolixity.  We  have 
it  in  his  novels  and  in  his  poems ;  in  the  worst  and  in 
the  best ;  it  is  the  turning  point  in  Oberon,  the  foun 
dation  of  Agathon,  and,  in  short,  the  main  staple  of 
Wieland's  productions.  It  is  his  philosophy,  his 
poetry,  his  prose,  his  incident,  his  catastrophe. 

We  cannot  much  admire  even  the  epic  poem  of 
Oberon.  The  narration  is  easy  and  agreeable,  clear, 
and  generally  interesting.  The  plots  are  closely  con 
nected,  and  the  story  conducted  to  a  perfect  end.  But 
the  best  things  in  it  are  borrowed.  Besides,  our 
author  selects  for  his  highest  effort,  the  scene  in  which 
the  unmarried  heroine  gives  birth  to  a  child ;  and,  after 
making  all  possible  allowances  for  nature,  and  heathen 
ism,  and  chivalry,  and  youth,  the  accident  which  brings 
about  the  trials  of  the  hero  and  heroine,  cannot,  by  any 
machinery  of  fairies,  be  dignified  into  a  poetic  incident. 

Agathon,  the  most  famous  prose  work  of  Wieland, 
is  Tom  Jones  turned  philosopher.  The  story  is  in 
vested  with  an  Attic  mask,  and  the  arts  of  erudition  are 
called  in  to  give  a  lustre  to  the  romance.  We  have  the 
system  of  Plato,  assailed  by  Hippias  in  person  ;  the 
commonwealth  of  Athens  alternates  with  Syracuse ; 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  149 

and  Dionysius,  and  Dion,  and  Aristippus,  and  last  of 
all,  the  excellent  Archytas  of  Tarentum,  are  conjured 
up  by  the  learning  of  the  novelist.  But  we  are  not 
taken  into  the  secret  abodes  and  private  mansions  of 
Grecian  life.  It  is  only  modern  coquetry  that  puts  on 
an  Attic  name.  For  ourselves,  we  think  we  perceive  a 
want  of  individuality,  and  a  wonderful  family  likeness 
in  the  heathens  and  Christians,  the  infidels  and  heretics, 
the  ancients  and  moderns,  who  have  been  described  by 
Wieland ;  and  we  should  trust  his  delineations  of  life 
at  Smyrna,  or  Syracuse,  or  Athens,  as  much  as  at  the 
court  of  Charlemagne,  or  any  where  else,  except  in  the 
coteries  of  his  contemporaries. 

The  mind  of  Wieland  was  passive,  not  creative. 
He  did  not  gain  his  stock  from  communing  with  his 
own  soul,  or  with  nature,  or  with  God ;  but  he  picked 
it  up  by  piecemeal ;  bringing  into  his  own  'garner  an 
idea  from  Plato,  and  a  theory  from  the  French  mate 
rialists  ;  a  satirical  touch  from  Cervantes,  and  yet 
more  from  Lucian ;  stealing  an  incident  from  Fielding, 
a  grace  from  Ariosto,  and  a  story  from  Chaucer.  He 
obtained  his  inspiration,  not  "  by  devout  prayer  to  that 
eternal  Spirit,  who  can  enrich  with  all  utterance,  but  by 
the  invocation  of  memory  and  her  siren  daughters." 
Klopstock  thought  meanly  of  him ;  and  Schiller's  Al 
manac  did  justice  to  his  general  acquaintance  with 
literature,  but  called  him  the  "  graceful  girl  of  Wei 
mar,  insipid  and  vain." 


150  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

Wieland  and  Klopstock  are  of  opposite  polarities ; 
those  whom  the  one  attracts,  the  other  as  surely  repels 
Wieland  treats  of  actual  life,  Klopstock  of  sentiment ; 
Klopstock  is  heavenly-minded,  Wieland  is  earthly  to 
excess ;  Klopstock  is  elegiac,  Wieland  is  gay ;  Klop 
stock  excels  in  lyric  verse,  Wieland  in  narrative ;  the 
former  despised  rhyme,  the  latter  delighted  in  it ; 
Klopstock  is  an  eagle  soaring  away  from  the  crowd, 
Wieland  a  starling  that  insults  the  passers  by. 

Of  the  three  most  distinguished  writers,  in  the  first 
period  of  reviving  literature  in  Germany,  each  filled  a 
large  and  important  part ;  the  one,  by  exciting  a  na 
tional  spirit ;  another,  by  exercising  the  severity  of 
criticism ;  and  the  third,  by  keeping  in  favor  the  blan 
dishments  of  rhyme  in  narrative  poetry.  Thus  they 
divided  among  themselves  the  labor  of  restoring  letters 

•  .  O 

in   their   country,   while   throngs   of   inferior   writers 
gathered  in  groups  round  the  admired  triumvirate. 


VI. 

But  there  was  one,  who  pursued  his  solitary  career 
apart  from  the  crowd.  The  name  of  Winckelman  is 
not  to  be  pronounced  without  veneration  for  his  ear 
nestness,  and  sympathy  for  his  sorrows.  The  whole 
circle  of  human  knowledge  does  not  possess  a  more 
cheerful  subject  of  study  than  that  of  ancient  art,  to 
which  he  devoted  himself ;  and  we  know  not  the  man 


ITS    PROGRESS    TILL    1770.  151 

of  superior  mind,  whose  life  has  been  less  favored  by 
the  ordinary  gifts  of  fortune.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
poor  shoemaker,  in  a  town  of  little  note.  At  the 
public  school,  the  aged  master  was  pleased  with  him, 
and  took  him  into  his  house ;  and  when  the  old  man 
grew  blind,  the  boy  used  to  be  his  guide,  and  to  read  to 
him,  receiving  in  return  the  benefit  of  his  conversation. 
After  the  hardest  struggles  with  extreme  poverty  at  the 
gymnasium,  at  the  university,  and  in  early  life,  when 
twenty-nine  years  old,  he  obtained  a  place  in  the 
employ  of  the  Saxon  minister,  near  Dresden,  with  a 
salary  of  fifty-six  dollars.  And  here  he  was  happy  • 
for  he  could  make  himself  familiar  with  painting 
and  sculpture.  When  his  merits  were  perceived,  the 
sovereign  of  Saxony  gave  him  a  pension  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars,  to  continue  two  years,  with  leave  to 
travel  in  Italy.  There  he  made  himself  friends,  and 
resided,  chiefly  in  Rome,  for  thirteen  years.  In  1768, 
he  was  induced  to  visit  Germany.  As  he  saw  the 
mountains  of  the  Tyrol,  his  heart  grew  heavy ;  as  he 
descended  them  on  the  north,  he  was  seized  with  a  real 
home-sickness  for  Italy.  With  difficulty  he  was  in 
duced  to  proceed  to  Vienna.  Here  he  was  well  re 
ceived  by  Kaunitz,  who  had  a  taste  for  the  fine  arts, 
and  kindly  noticed  by  Maria  Theresa.  It  was  in  April 
that  he  entered  Germany ;  and  early  in  June,  he  was 
on  his  way  again  to  Italy.  On  the  journey,  the  kind- 
hearted,  unsuspecting  scholar  fell  into  the  company  of  a 


152  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

pardoned  convict,  who  murdered  him  at  Trieste,  in  the 
hope  of  getting  possession  of  his  gold  medallions. 

Winckelman's  History  of  Ancient  Art,  first  pub 
lished  in  1764,  is  the  common  property  of  cultivated 
nations ;  original  in  its  design ;  full  of  taste,  erudition, 
and  eloquence .  When  we  consider  the  nature  of  the  sub 
jects,  in  treating  which  he  obtained  his  glory,  so  unlike 
any  thing  that  lay  in  his  horoscope ;  or  the  finished 
style  in  which  his  works  are  written,  especially  when 
the  imperfect  state  of  German  literature,  previous  to  his 
leaving  Germany,  is  remembered,  we  feel  for  him  an 
unmixed  admiration.  How  energetic  a  will  must  he 
have  possessed,  to  accomplish  what  he  did,  as  it  were 
in  spite  of  his  destiny  !  And  how  much  is  it  to  bis 
honor,  that,  though  he  could  find  rest  only  among  the 
creations  of  Southern  art,  he  preserved  the  pride  of  a 
German,  and  laid  his  laurels  at  the  feet  of  his  country. 

MEN    OF    SCIENCE    AND    LEARNING. 
I. 

Enthusiasm  in  letters  manifests  itself  by  devoted- 
ness.  Singleness  of  purpose  can  alone  conduct  to  the 
highest  eminence ;  it  may  leave  the  character  feebly 
developed  in  the  points  that  concern  the  details 
of  business  and  active  intercourse ;  but  it  will  give 
the  mind  a  singular  power  in  the  department  with 
which  it  is  familiar.  Engendered  in  a  fervid  spirit  by 


MEN    OF    SCIENCE    AND    LEARNING.  153 

a  noble  object,  it  grows  by  exercise  into  a  habit ;  and 
intellectual  life,  •  upheld  by  a  permanent  excitement, 
almost  entirely  independent  of  fortune  and  the  world,  be 
comes  its  own  solace  and  reward.  The  constant  effort  at 
advancement  in  culture  and  the  discovery  of  truth, 
gives  variety  and  value  to  existence.  In  the  eye  of  the 
world,  such  studious  men  may  appear  to  be  but  poor 
calculators,  who  sacrifice  the  main  chance  to  follow 
ideal  interests ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  in  their  theory, 
the  man  of  lower  pursuits  is  a  thoughtless  spendthrift, 
who,  being  possessed  of  nothing  but  time,  squanders  it 
wastefully,  and  lays  up  no  treasure  in  himself. 

We  name  a  planet  after  a  German  who  began  his 
career  as  a  musician  in  a  Hanoverian  regiment.  He 
possessed  that  power  which  can  consecrate  a  life  to  a 
great  design.  Too  poor  to  buy  a  telescope,  he  had  in 
genuity  enough  to  make  one ;  and  Providence,  as  if  to 
laugh  to  scorn  the  vain  distinctions  of  scientific  corpo 
rations,  left  it  to  this  child  of  nature  to  make  the  most 
striking  astronomical  discovery  of  the  last  century. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  thought  that  fame  and  wealth  are 
the  leading  passions  which  have  impelled  men  to 
earnest  and  undivided  application.  Certainly  the  love 
of  fame  becomes  a  generous  mind ;  for  who  would  not 
wish  to  stand  well  with  his  fellow-men?  Yet  Her- 
schel's  great  precursor,  Copernicus,  was  superior  to  its 
allurements.  He  deliberately  spent  the  greatest  part 
of  a  life  of  more  than  seventy  years,  in  establishing  the 


154  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

theory  which  bears  his  name ;  and  possessing  a  kind  of 
knowledge  which  could  not  but  secure  to  him  a  univer 
sality  of  reputation  beyond  any  which  a  poet  can 
compass,  he  yet  communed  with  himself  on  his  great 
discoveries  so  long,  that  he  never  saw  them  published 
till  the  very  day  of  his  death. 

Or  is  the  prospect  of  wealth  the  excitement  to 
intellectual  efforts  ?  In  the  same  department  of 
knowledge,  the  industry  and  labors  of  Kepler  were 
unwearied.  While  others  have  gained  glory  by  bring 
ing  forward  isolated  doctrines,  Kepler  created  science. 
He  had  taste  and  genius  for  poetry,  but  gave  his  en 
thusiasm  to  the  study  of  the  skies.  Though  in  the 
service  of  the  German  emperor,  he  yet  lived  on  the 
narrowest  means  ;  and,  after  all  his  success  and  all  his 
labors,  left  to  his  family  but  twenty-two  rix  dollars,  and 
an  old  horse,  worth  a  few  florins.  But  was  Kepler 
therefore  unhappy  ?  His  correspondence  breathes  the 
spirit  of  cheerfulness,  and  he  tells  the  story  of  his  own 
penury  without  complaints.  Kepler  was  the  precursor 
of  Newton ;  the  Englishman  lived  to  be  more  than 
eighty ;  Kepler  died  while  not  yet  sixty.  We  do  not 
contrast  their  respective  merits ;  but  when  it  is  done, 
the  miserable  external  existence  of  Kepler  should  not 
be  left  out  of  mind.  Newton  was  worshipped  in  his 
lifetime  as  a  superhuman  being.  He  was  member  of 
parliament ;  was  knighted  ;  enjoyed  the  benefits  of  for 
tune  ;  and,  dying,  left  a  good  estate.  Kepler's  body 


MEN    OF    SCIENCE    AND    LEARNING.  155 

was  given  to  the  earth  without  honor ;  the  remains  of 
Newton  were  interred  with  pomp,  dukes  and  lords 
being  the  pall-bearers ;  on  his  monument,  he  was 
called  "  the  honor  of  the  human  race."  In  the  last 
century,  a  proposal  was  made  to  erect  a  monument  to 
Kepler  by  subscription,  and  the  plan  failed.  "  After 
all,"  said  Kastner,  "since  Germany  refused  him 
bread  while  he  dwelt  on  earth,  it  matters  little  now 
that  he  has  been  immortal  for  more  than  a  century 
and  a  hah7,  whether  it  gives  him  a  stone."  "  His  mon 
ument,"  said  another,  "  is  in  the  moon." 

This  devotedness  is  more  frequently  illustrated 
among  the  Germans  than  elsewhere  in  Europe.  It 
is  the  same  spirit  under  a  different  form,  that  supported 
the  man,  who,  more  than  any  other,  is  the  fit  represen 
tative  of  German  character — the  father  of  the  reforma 
tion.  When  he  perilled  his  life  without  fear,  before  the 
imperial  diet,  under  the  frown  of  the  emperor  himself, 
he  would  not  swerve  from  his  purpose,  declaring  for 
his  only  excuse,  "I  cannot  act  otherwise,  that  God 
knows." 

The  exact  sciences  have  continued  to  be  success 
fully  cultivated  in  the  country  which  gave  the  first 
impulse  to  modern  astronomy.  Euler  continued  his 
labors  with  cheerfulness,  even  in  the  last  seventeen 
years  of  his  life,  though  the  light  of  heaven  shone  on 
him  in  vain  and  his  eyes  were  closed  on  the  splendors 
of  the  firmament,  through  which  he  had  loved  to  trace 


156  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

the  wanderings  of  the  planets.  In  o\ir  day  the  greatest 
of  mathematicians  in  Germany  is  Gauss.  Nothing 
that  he  has  attempted,  is  left  incomplete.  In  science, 
like  Schiller  in  poetry,  he  always  finished  his  work 
with  the  most  scrupulous  exactness  and  elegance,  not 
so  much  to  delight  others,  as  to  satisfy  himself.  He 
has  written  little ;  but  the  highest  perfection  belongs 
to  all  that  he  has  published.  Those  who  are  best  com 
petent  to  judge,  consider  him  as  the  rival  of  La  Place. 
In  variety  of  powers,  the  French  astronomer  has  the 
ascendency;  in  devotedness,  he  is  surpassed  by  the 
Hanoverian.  La  Place  had  the  vanity  to  be  a  peer ; 
one  may  see  his  portrait  in  Paris,  in  which  he  is  repre 
sented  in  the  robes  of  the  privileged  order.  But  who 
feels  an  interest  in  the  Marquis  de  La  Place  ?  Tor  the 
farmer's  son,  who  expounded  the  system  of  celestial 
mechanics  and  discovered  new  applications  of  the  doc 
trine  of  the  calculus,  who  reconciled  the  apparent  irreg 
ularities  in  the  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  with  the 
influence  of  acknowledged  laws,  and  deduced  directly 
from  the  principle  of  gravity  the  results  which  had 
been  gathered  from  the  observations  of  many  cen 
turies — for  him,  one  of  the  greatest  mathematicians  of 
all  times,  we  have  the  most  profound  respect.  But  La 
Place,  the  unskilful  minister  of  the  interior,  the  chan 
cellor  of  Napoleon's  senate,  the  member  of  the  upper 
house  of  the  Bourbons,  was,  after  all,  but  an  infe 
rior  man. 


MEN    OF    SCIENCE    AND    LEARNING.  157 

II. 

May  we  not  then  infer,  that  the  power  of  con 
secrating  a  life  with  undivided  zeal  to  one  great  object, 
is  characteristic  of  Germany  ?  In  the  department  of 
natural  history,  this  quality  leads  to  wonderful  accuracy 
and  minuteness  of  knowledge.  We  might  refer  to  the 
cabinet  in  Berlin,  as  perhaps  the  best  arranged  of  any 
in  the  world.  Not  to  enumerate  many  names,  we  yet 
must  express  veneration  for  the  patriarch  Blumenbach, 
who  for  more  than  fifty  years  taught  the  great 
branches  of  natural  history  and  physiology  to  crowded 
audiences.  The  spirit  that  breathed  in  all  that  he 
uttered,  enkindled  the  ardor  of  curiosity.  Versed  in  all 
that  could  interest  a  philosopher,  he  strayed  into  other 
departments  of  science  only  to  illustrate  his  own. 

» 

His  great  contemporary  in  Paris,  the  Baron  Cuvier, 
took  office  under  the  Bourbons,  and,  without  one  single 
talent  as  a  statesman,  except  the  gift  of  speaking  grace 
fully  and  fluently,  was  yet  tickled  with  the  cap  and 
bells  of  public  place.  Blumenbach,  too,  had  been  at 
court ;  but  not  as  a  possessor  of  office.  On  a  journey 
to  England,  George  the  Third,  who  loved  his  Hanove 
rian  subjects,  invited  him  to  Windsor.  "Now  tell 
me,"  said  the  king  familiarly,  "of  all  that  you  have 
seen  in  my  capital  what  has  most  surprised  you  ?  " 
"  The  Kangaroo,"  replied  Blumenbach  promptly ;  for 
that  singular  animal  had  then  for  the  first  time  been 
brought  from  Australasia. 


158  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

The  pupils  of  Blrnnenbach  cherish  towards  him  re 
spect  and  affection ;  and  long  after  the  echo  of  his  voice 
shall  have  died  away,  they  will  remember  the  hours 
that  were  passed  in  his  lecture-room  as  among  the 
most  profitable  and  agreeable  of  their  lives.  Is  it  asked 
by  what  secret  charm  he  so  long  gathered  around  him 
from  all  parts  of  the  world  a  throng  of  curious  youth, 
whose  affection  he  governed,  and  whose  zeal  he  in 
flamed  ?  It  was  genius  united  with  singleness  of  pur 
pose  and  cheerful  benevolence.  At  ease  in  his  own 
mind,  he  observed  all  earnest  efforts  with  delight,  and 
derived  information  from  every  possible  source;  and 
while  his  powers  are  of  a  nature  which  would  con 
duct  to  eminence  in  any  career,  he  never  faltered  in  his 
attachment  to  the  science  which  won  his  first  love. 

In  the  same  way  the  secret  of  German  success  in 
philological  pursuits  lies  in  the  unity  of  object,  encou 
raged  and  strengthened  by  free  and  numerous  competi 
tion.  In  England  men  of  learning  often  acquire  high 
offices  in  the  church.  But  Heyne,  once  immersed  in  phi 
lological  lore,  was  never  to  quit  it  except  with  life. 
Eighteen  years  did  not  seem  too  many  to  give  to  the 
elucidation  of  one  poet.  That  poet  was  indeed 
Homer,  and  the  interpretation  of  his  rhapsodies 
brought  into  discussion  the  whole  of  Grecian  my 
thology.  Heyne  acquired,  on  the  score  of  per 
sonal  character  and  capacity  for  business,  a  great  and 
well-founded  fame.  He  was  the  confidential  friend 


MEN    OF    SCIENCE    AND    LEARNING.  159 

of  a  prime  minister,  yet  Ms  influence  was  used  solely  to 
perfect  the  establishments  of  the  university  of  which  he 
was  a  member.  In  a  letter  from  him  to  Herder,  he 
describes  his  mode  of  life.  "  I  see  company/3  says  he, 
"  hardly  three  times  a  year,"  and  he  declares  that  "  all 
his  colleagues,  except  the  fools,"  thus  live  within  them 
selves.  He  was  accustomed  to  rise  at  five,  and  was  so 
closely  employed  during  the  morning,  that  he  did  not 
see  his  family  till  the  time  for  dinner.  This  was  a 
hasty  meal.  At  tea,  he  spent  with  them  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  and  that  only  in  his  advanced  age.  At  eight 
came  the  evening  repast,  to  which  he  willingly  gave  an 
hour,  and  then  he  continued  his  employments  till  half- 
past  ten  or  eleven.  In  this  way  he  was  able  to  read 
three  or  four  lectures  of  an  hour's  length  daily,  to 
despatch  more  than  a  thousand  letters  a  year,  to  publish 
elaborate  works,  of  which  the  titles  cover  twenty  octavo 
pages,  and  to  write  at  least  eight  thousand  articles  in 
the  Review  of  which  he  was  the  editor,  beside  many 
contributions  to  other  journals.  Such  a  career  is 
hardly  enviable ;  and  he  may  seem  to  have  renounced 
all  the  comforts  of  social  life.  Yet  Heyne  was  beloved 
in  his  family,  and  tenderly  respected  by  his  children. 
His  external  circumstances  were,  for  a  part  of  his  life, 
severe  in  the  extreme.  But  at  last  he  found  a  refuge. 
Having  acquired  by  his  wisdom  the  direction  of  the 
most  respected  university  of  the  continent,  he  beheld 
all  its  institutions  thrive  under  his  management;  his 


1GO  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

name  spread  through  the  world ;  even  in  his  lifetime 
the  greatest  of  the  Roman  poets  was  introduced  into 
the  United  States  in  the  text  which  his  industry  had 
amended.  The  merit  of  Heyne  extended  to  a  reform 
in  learning.  The  necessity  of  grammatical  precision 
continued  to  be  acknowledged,  but  taste  also  was  culti 
vated,  together  with  a  lively  sensibility  to  all  the  beauty 
and  instruction  contained  in  the  written  monuments  of 
antiquity.  It  was  in  his  school,  and  following  in  his 
steps,  that  the  seed  was  sown  for  the  rich  harvest 
which  is  now  gathering  in  Germany  in  every  branch 
of  philological  research. 

One  peculiar  merit  of  Heyne  we  cannot  forbear 
mentioning.  He  was  the  librarian  of  the  Georgia 
Augusta,  and  an  excellent  one ;  and  to  us  this  seems 
high  praise.  There  are  probably  at  this  time  not  more 
than  six  good  librarians  in  the  world,  and  of  these  we,  in 
this  country,  at  least  have  one.  The  office  requires  de- 
votedness  ;  and  further,  a  good  librarian  must  be  conver 
sant  with  all  the  sciences,  must  possess  the  very  spirit  of 
order,  great  activity  and  vigilance,  and  an  almost  intui 
tive  judgment,  to  make  new  purchases  with  prudence, 
and  preserve  a  proportion  in  the  several  departments. 
Heyne,  though  he  began  under  no  peculiarly  favorable 
auspices,  was  chief  librarian  for  forty-nine  years,  with 
almost  unlimited  influence ;  and  he  left  the  collection, 
the  very  best,  decidedly  the  best  arranged,  and  the 
most  judiciously  put  together,  in  Europe.  The  royal 


MEN    OF    SCIENCE    AND    LEARNING.  161 

library  at  Paris  is  a  chaos  to  it.  In  a  collection  of 
about  300,000  volumes,  there  is  not  one  on  which  even 
a  younger  clerk  cannot  readily  lay  his  hand. 


III. 

No  one  has  contemplated  classical  antiquity  from  a 
more  commanding  point  of  view  than  Frederic  Augustus 
Wolf,  the  illustrious  rival  of  Heyne.  This  most  celebra 
ted  scholar  of  our  times,  was  born  of  humble  parents  in 
1 7  5 7,  at  Hainrode,  in  the  county  of  Hohenstein.  Hardly 
was  he  seven  years  old,  before  he  was  entered  at  the 
Gymnasium  in  Nordhausen ;  and  at  seventeen,  he  re 
paired  to  the  University  of  Gottingen,  with  the  reputa 
tion  of  having  already  acquired  an  extraordinary  ac 
quaintance  with  the  works  of  the  ancients.  His  favorite 
study  led  him  at  once  to  Heyne,  who  questioned  him 
on  his  plans.  When  he  declared  his  intention  of  devo 
ting  himself  to  classical  philology,  Heyne,  who  in  his 
early  years  had  suffered  from  extreme  want  and 
deferred  expectation,  endeavored  to  dissuade  him, 
saying,  "There  are  but  three  professorships  of  Elo 
quence  in  all  Germany."  "  One  of  those  three  I  am 
determined  to  have,"  replied  the  young  aspirant ;  and, 
in  fact,  in  1783,  before  he  was  twenty-seven,  he  be 
came  professor  of  Eloquence  in  the  University  of 
Halle,  where  he  pursued  his  high  literary  career  with 
11 


162  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

boldness,  ardor,  and,  we  believe,  with  prodigious, 
though  irregular  industry. 

In  after  life,  he  used  to  say  of  himself,  that  it  was 
his  object  to  be  an  instructor,  not  an  author.  And  it 
is  the  testimony  of  one  of  his  pupils,  that  at  times  it 
was  with  difficulty  he  could  make  his  way  .through  the 
crowd  in  his  lecture-room.  His  hearers,  it  was  said, 
"  hung  upon  his  lips  with  such  attention  and  love,  that 
you  might  have  heard  their  hearts  beat  under  their 
shaggy  coats."  On  the  other  hand  he  was  excessively 
overbearing  toward  his  colleagues ;  excusing  himself  in 
the  words  of  Bentley,  with  whom  he  delighted  in  being 
compared ;  and  who  would  take  off  his  hat  only  to  the 
junior  students,  saying,  "  Of  the  former  nothing  can 
be  made;  the  latter  may  yet  come  to  something." 
But  with  ah1  the  excesses  of  his  occasional  arrogance, 
Wolf's  disposition  was  benevolent.  His  time  he  gave 
most  liberally  to  his  pupils.  He  lent  books  from  his 
very  valuable  library  cheerfully  ;  and  when  these  have 
been  sold  by  some  ungrateful  vagabond,  he  has  repur 
chased  his  own  volumes  without  losing  his  temper,  and 
without  becoming  less  liberal  in  his  spirit.  He  used 
to  say,  that  there  was  a  malice  of  the  head,  and  a 
malice  of  the  heart.  Of  the  last  he  declared  he  pos 
sessed  nothing. 

When  Halle  was  annexed  to  the  kingdom  of  West 
phalia,  Wolf  was  transferred  to  Berlin ;  and  though 
he  did  not  take  an  active  part  in  the  new  university, 


MEN    OF    SCIENCE    AND    LEARNING.  163 

which  was  then  establishing  in  that  city,  he  still  pro 
fessed  to  read  lectures.  But  here  was  the  trial  of  his 
character.  The  use  which  a  man  makes  of  his  leisure, 
shows  the  spirit  he  is  of;  and  if  prosperity  is  in  gen 
eral  the  great  trial  of  character,  it  is  the  opportunity  to 
be  indolent  which  is  the  touchstone  of  the  scholar. 
Wolf,  when  he  found  himself  possessed  of  leisure  and 
a  pension,  became  idle ;  and  he  who  as  a  philologian 
would  have  had  no  peer  in  Europe,  set  up  for  a  fine 
gentleman.  But  with  all  Iris  efforts,  the  man,  who  had 
spent  his  youth  among  the  mountains,  and  his  man 
hood  among  books,  never  could  get  the  air  of  a 
courtier. 

The  stranger  that  would  see  him,  might  expect  to 
find  him  on  a  sunny  morning  in  the  park  between 
eleven  and  one,  or  at  the  best  restaurateur  s  about 
three,  or  an  hour  or  two  later  at  his  own  rooms. 
If  joined  on  his  walks,  and  he  preferred  society,  he 
would,  with  delightful  garrulity,  tell  the  story  of  his 
early  life,  repeat  his  good  sayings,  especially  his  severe 
ones,  fight  his  battles  with  his  assailants  over  again, 
and  boast  that  his  five  letters  to  Heyne  were  as  sym 
metrical  as  a  Greek  tragedy.  He  would  recount  the 
persons  of  rank,  by  whom  he  had  been  treated  with 
civility;  and  now  and  then  he  would  speak  of  the 
poetry  he  admired,  and  the  examples  of  ancient  or  of 
modern  worth  to  which  he  offered  a  willing  tribute. 
For  he  retained  to  the  last  something  of  the  lofty  spirit 


164  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

of  a  scholar ;  if  he  loved  good  cheer,  he  loved  a  good 
book  also ;  the  exquisite  airs  in  the  last  opera  of  Ros 
sini,  or  the  admirable  acting  on  the  Berlin  stage,  never 
made  him  faithless  to  the  strains  in  the  Greek  cho 
ruses,  which  he  would  pretend  that  he  could  read  as 
easily  as  the  prayer-book.  He  studied  the  art  of  living 
well;  but  he  also  retained  a  soul  for  the  unrivalled 
eloquence  of  Plato.  If  in  his  desultory  conversation  he 
sometimes  repeated  the  newest  tale  of  scandal,  he 
would  at  others  with  his  clear  voice,  which  was  melody 
itself,  read  aloud  the  perfect  hexameters  of  Homer,  or 
run  through  the  mazes  of  a  Pindaric  strophe,  or  chant 
the  rapid  anapaests  of  his  favorite  Aristophanes.  He 
prided  himself  also  on  his  knowledge  of  the  English ; 
and  Fielding's  Tom  Jones  was  his  favorite  work.  His 
pronunciation  of  the  French  was  not  good,  yet  he  held 
himself  perfectly  competent  to  judge  of  the  delicacies 
and  rules  of  that  language. 

He  could  not  brook  a  superior  in  any  thing.  To 
show  his  own  mastery  over  the  German,  he  began  a 
strictly  literal  version  of  the  Odyssey,  adding  nothing, 
exhausting  the  meaning  of  each  Greek  word,  and 
giving  not  merely  line  for  line,  but  foot  for  foot,  and 
caesura  for  caesura.  When  he  had  completed  exactly 
one  hundred  lines  in  this  manner,  he  stopped  in  the 
midst  of  a  sentence,  declaring  that  there  lived  not  the 
man  who  could  go  on  and  finish  the  period.  Again, 
when  he  wrote  in  German,  he,  more  than  once,  made 


MEN    OF    SCIENCE    AND    LEARNING.  165 

an  apology  for  employing  a  language  that  was  less 
familiar  to  him  than  Latin.  Of  his  style  in  Latin,  no 
praise  could  seem  to  him  excessive.  Cicero  had,  in 
one  of  his  works,  translated  a  long  passage  from 
the  Euthyphron  of  Plato;  Wolf  turned  the  whole 
of  the  dialogue  into  Latin  in  a  most  masterly  man 
ner,  and  on  purpose,  as  he  has  been  heard  to  say, 
that  he  might  challenge  a  comparison  with  Cicero 
himself, 

IV. 

Wolf  was  accustomed  to  complain,  that  the  study 
of  theology  was  made  a  profession  by  itself,  and 
Grotius  was  his  example,  to  prove  the  compatibility 
of  theological  erudition  with  the  acquisitions  of  a 
statesman. 

German  theology,  however,  is  a  topic  on  which  it 
is  not  our  province  to  enter.  Its  learning  is  univer 
sally  acknowledged;  but  objections  are  raised  to  its 
faith  and  spirit.  We  venture  to  suggest  that  Chris 
tianity  has  nothing  to  fear  from  investigation;  that 
Germany  is  the  centre  and  main  support  of  protestant 
ism  on  the  continent ;  that  to  declare  its  most  learned 
divines  no  better  than  infidels,  has  at  least  nothing  of 
consolation  in  it ;  and  finally,  that  the  German  nation, 
as  a  mass,  is  eminently  quickened  and  cheered  by  re 
ligious  influences.  We  will  add  one  word  more,  for 
to  defend  a  tolerant  spirit  is  never  out  of  season.  The 


166  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

Germans  in  their  turn  are  astonished,  when  they  are 
told  that  thousands  of  children  walk  our  streets  who 
have  not  been  baptized ;  and  that  the  great  majority 
in  our  country  know  nothing  of  the  rite  of  confirmation. 
Let  us  then  beware  of  rash  judgments  respecting  a 
great  people.  The  proper  consideration  of  differences 
in  usages  and  habits  of  thought  may  nourish  a 
stronger  attachment  to  the  principle  which  underlies  a 
ceremony  and  lends  to  a  custom  its  importance. 

Nor  shall  we  attempt  an  analysis  of  the  masters  in 
German  philosophy.  The  effect  on  the  nation  at 
large  of  the  earnest  and  continued  study  of  meta 
physics,  is  as  manifest  as  that  of  Edwards  and  Hopkins 
on  the  intellectual  habits  of  the  people  of  New  Eng 
land.  So  various  are  the  systems,  that  almost  every 
possible  theory  may  be  found,  either  in  the  lessons  of 
Kant,  who  investigates  with  exactness  the  sources  of 
science,  measures  the  boundaries  of  the  human  un 
derstanding,  sets  up  the  landmarks  between  positive 
knowledge  and  idle  speculation,  and  then  deduces  the 
rules  of  taste,  the  principles  of  justice,  the  doctrines  of 
virtue,  and  the  truths  of  religion,  from  reason  itself, 
and  the  ultimate  laws  of  human  existence ;  or,  in  the 
audacious  Fichte,  who  leaves  the  ideal  Berkeley  far  in 
the  rear,  annihilates  earth  and  heaven,  and  exaggerates 
the  sentiment  of  individuality,  till  he  comes  to  know 
of  no  essence  but  himself,  and  deems  the  universe  and 
its  glories  but  creations  and  images  of  his  own  mind ;  or 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     167 

in  Schelling,  who  claims  existence  for  the  external 
world,  and,  after  exhibiting  it  in  the  splendors  of  its 
actual  being,  falls  down  and  worships  it,  as  though  it 
were  identical  with  the  divinity  itself;  or  in  Hegel, 
who  dresses  up  common  truths  in  uncommon  forms, 
transposes  ontology  to  logic,  and  constitutes  the  laws 
of  logic  which  to  him  are  the  laws  of  being,  the  minor 
deities  of  a  new  religion ;  or  lastly,  the  pure  and  gentle 
Jacobi,  whose  nature 'abhorred  skepticism  and  specu 
lative  abstractions,  and  received  the  truths  which  he 
vindicated,  as  well  as  his  happy  style,  from  the  im 
pulse  of  his  heart. 

THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE. 
I. 

Of  the  men  of  letters  in  Germany,  who  in  the  sec 
ond  great  period  of  its  literature  contributed  to  elevate 
the  reputation  and  improve  the  taste  of  their  country, 
Herder  was  distinguished  for  variety  of  attainments, 
industry  and  purity. 

The  son  of  a  poor  Prussian  schoolmaster,  he  re 
ceived  his  literary  education  in  Konigsburg,  at  a  time 
when  the  chair  of  philosophy  in  that  university  was 
filled  by  Kant ;  and  while  he  devoted  himself  especially 
to  the  study  of  theology,  he  was  deeply  interested  in 
philosophy  and  elegant  literature,  felt  the  inspiration 
which  had  been  breathed  into  his  country  by  Klopstock 


168  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

and  Lessing,  and  was  desirous  of  taking  part  in  guiding 
the  taste  and  thoughts  of  the  public. 

While  yet  in  the  vigor  of  early  manhood,  after 
travelling  in  his  own  country  and  a  part  of  France, 
and  after  having  passed  five  years  with  the  Prince  of 
Biickeburg,  Herder  was  invited  to  accept  a  professor 
ship  in  theology  at  Gottingen.  But  the  reigning  king 
of  England,  George  the  Third,  in  the  exertion  of  his 
power  as  Elector  of  Hanover  and  Rector  of  its  Univer 
sity,  negatived  the  appointment,  on  the  ground  that  his 
religious  opinions  were  not  orthodox.  The  more  liber 
al  duke  of  Saxe  Weimar  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the 
clergy  in  that  Duchy  ;  and  by  the  change  of  residence, 
Herder  became  the  companion  of  Goethe,  Wieland, 
and  Schiller. 

Without  possessing  great  originality,  he  had  that 
power  which  gives  life  to  acquisitions.  Conscious  of 
his  OWTI  inability  to  tread  firmly  in  the  highest  "  heaven 
of  invention,"  he  contented  himself  with  occupations 
suited  to  his  capacities,  taking  the  widest  range 
through  the  literature  of  almost  every  age  and  nation. 
He  knew  how  to  enter  upon  the  study  of  a  foreign 
work,  as  if  he  had  been  of  the  country  and  the  time  for 
which  it  was  originally  designed,  and  he  was  able  to 
transfer  into  his  OWTI  language  the  lighter  graces,  no 
less  than  the  severe  lessons  of  foreign  poets ;  the  ballads 
of  Scotland,  and  the  songs  of  Sicily ;  the  traditions  of 
the  Spanish  Cid,  and  the  brilliant  sayings  of  the  Per- 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     169 

sian  Saadi.  To  turn  over  some  parts  of  his  works  is  like 
walking  in  a  botanical  garden,  where  the  rare  and  pre 
cious  plants  of  other  countries,  which  thrive  in  climates 
the  most  distant  and  most  different,  are  artificially,  yet 
safely  collected,  and  planted  without  injury  in  soils 
suited  to  their  natures. 

In  1778  and  1779  he  undertook  to  collect,  and 
faithfully  transfer  to  his  own  language  the  most  beau 
tiful  and  most  popular  songs  of  all  nations,  and  thus  by 
comparing  the  national  feelings  of  different  ages  and 
races  to  exhibit  the  identity  of  all.  The  noblest  bards 
were  to  be  assembled,  and  each  to  express  the  genius  of 
the  people  to  which  he  belonged,  so  that  from  the  most 
various  national  tones,  the  harmony  of  all  with  one 
common  nature  might  be  apparent.  These  repre 
sentatives  of  popular  feeling  from  all  parts  of  the 
world  and  all  periods  of  history,  were  to  meet  together 
and  unite  in  bearing  testimony  to  humanity,  the  affec 
tions,  and  moral  rectitude.  The  design  was  not  car 
ried  out  in  its  full  extent,  but  its  spirit  pervades  the 
volumes  of  Herder,  some  of  which  may  be  compared  to 
a  fanciful  piece  of  mosaic,  composed  of  costly  stones 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  if  not  always  arranged 
in  the  very  best  taste,  at  least  always  rich  in  them 
selves,  and  well  fitted  to  instruct.  He  did  more  than 
translate.  Wherever  he  found  a  just  and  happy  image 
or  allegory,  he  would  interweave  it  gracefully  into  his 
criticisms  or  essays ;  or  remarks  on  history  and  man. 


170  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

From  the  rubbish  of  verbal  commentators  and  alle 
gorical  expositors,  he  has  drawn  many  curious  and  in 
structive  fables,  narratives*,  proverbs,  and  comparisons ; 
thus  putting  in  currency  again  many  a  bright  thought, 
which*  lay  covered  with  the  rust  of  learning.  In  fables, 
dialogues,  and  familiar  letters,  in  poems  and  allegories, 
imitated,  translated,  or  original,  he  alike  endeavored  to 
please  and  to  teach  lessons  of  goodness.  It  may  be 
said  of  Herder,  that  he  passed  his  life  in  tranquil  indus 
try,  possessed  of  a  delicate  perception  of  the  beautiful, 
cherishing  in  himself  and  others  a  love  of  learning, 
creating  as  it  were  anew  the  thoughts  of  the  wise  and 
good,  disseminating  a  knowledge  of  what  seemed  to 
him  the  elements  of  virtue,  and  cherishing  and  pro 
moting  whatever  can  improve  or  adorn  humanity. 

In  his  prose,  his  thoughts  are  communicated  under 
the  most  various  forms  and  images ;  and  his  style 
would  seem  gorgeous  from  excess  of  ornament,  were  it 
not  that  for  him  a  profusion  of  comparisons  and  figures 
of  rhetoric  seems  not  the  effort  of  art,  but  the  most 
natural  mode  of  expression.  Few  of  his  works  can  be 
recommended  as  finished  performances,  or  of  universal 
interest.  His  philosophical  reflections  on  the  History 
of  Man  are  written  in  a  solemn  and  contemplative 
mood,  and  exhibit,  perhaps,  most  fairly  his  private 
character  not  less  than  his  merits  as  a  writer. 

There  are  those  who  delight  in  poetry,  because  it 
crowns  enjoyment  with,  the  most  exquisite  gaiety, 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     171 

The  muse  that  guided  Herder's  steps,  showed  him 
the  worm  that  gnaws  at  the  bud  of  earthly  joys, 
till  in  bitterness  of  heart,  he  railed  at  the  fools  who 
put  their  trust  in  them.  She  showed  him  the  traces 
of  death  in  the  very  haunts  of  crowded  existence,  but 
also  led  him  to  familiarity  with  the  lessons  of  immor 
tality,  so  that  qualities  apparently  the  most  opposite 
were  united  in  him.  He  was  heavenly-minded  and  se 
rene  in  his  own  love  of  goodness ;  but  he  hated  all  that 
was  opposed  to  the  objects  that  he  cherished.  When 
reproof  was  forced  from  him,  his  censure  was  not 
measured.  Dislike  became  antipathy ;  and  disdaining 
all  compromise,  he  loathed  what  he  did  not  admire, 
and  detested  even  to  injustice  what  was  not  in 
harmony  with  his  feelings.  In  this  way  his  peace  was 
disturbed,  and  his  life  embittered.  He  held  up  the 
torch  to  the  defects  and  faults  of  others  with  an  un 
steady  hand,  and  "the  dark  flame,  throwing  out 
sparks  in  every  direction,  injured  himself  the  worst." 

Herder  possessed  vivacity,  but  not  cheerfulness ;  a 
kind  disposition,  but  not  a  happy  one ;  great  suscep 
tibility,  but  no  content.  Being  of  a  glowing  temper, 
he  carried  his  elegance  of  taste  into  mournful  themes. 
He  muses  on  the  grave,  but  covers  it  with  flowers  ;  his 
imaginings  are  of  death,  but  he  bodies  forth  its  angel  as 
a  beautiful  youth,  with  whom  he  could  even  grow 
familiar.  He  used  to  long  to  see  a  spirit,  and  was 


172  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

doubtless  in  earnest  in  the  desire.  His  imagination 
has  been  compared  to  the  night-blooming  Cereus. 

He  was  fond  of  nature,  for  nature  soothes  irritable 
men  by  her  permanent  loveliness.  To  his  eye  the 
meanest  floweret  opened  views  into  Paradise.  But  he 
never  was  calmly  contented.  Wrong  affected  him,  as 
some  lively  poisons  do  the  system.  He  would  commit 
acts  of  indiscretion  in  defending  the  side  of  good  feeling 
and  truth ;  and  when  the  serpents  of  the  age  turned 
and  hissed  at  him,  he  kept  his  ground,  in  haughty 
defiance,  striking  passionate  blows,  without  good  aim, 
at  those  against  whose  venom  he  took  no  pains  to  pro 
tect  himself.  All  his  intercourse  with  man  was  at 
tended  with  excitability ;  and  he  had  little  practical 
talent,  and  no  tact  in  the  management  of  ordinary  con 
cerns.  He  grew  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  whole  age 
in  which  he  lived,  not  less  than  with  his  part  in  it ; 
and  one  fine  morning,  as  he  heard  the  clear  tones  ef 
the  bells  of  the  cathedral,  he  exclaimed,  "  Would  that 
I  had  been  born  in  the  middle  ages !  "  Nay,  he  was 
dissatisfied  with  life  itself,  and  at  the  close  of  it  is  re 
ported  to  have  said,  "  Thou  Sim,  I  am  weary  of  thy 
beams ! " 

His  luxuriant  and  productive  learning  hung  round 
his  melancholy  nature  like  a  vine  with  its  delicious 
clusters  round  a  cypress  tree.  Yet  the  works  of 
Herder  are  so  filled  with  lessons  of  benevolence, 
and  excellent  examples,  that  they  nourish  the  love 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     173 

of  virtuous  action,  and  above  all,  the  respect  for 
human  nature.  The  admiration  of  moral  beauty 
was  a  part  of  his  religion ;  his  faith  in  it  lay  en 
shrined  within  him,  with  the  love  of  God.  His.  mind 
is  earnest  to  gather  together  the  scattered  proofs  of 
human  excellence,  to  discern,  amidst  the  wrecks  of 
genius  and  the  abuse  of  power,  the  marks  of  a  better 
nature,  to  form  a  beautiful  ideal  of  humanity.  The 
most  touching  testimony  to  the  personal  excellence  of 
Herder,  was  given  by  the  celebrated  Amelia,  dutchess 
dowager  of  Weimar.  On  the  morning  of  her  own 
death,  she  observed  with  serenity,  "  Now  I  shall  soon 
be  with  my  dear  Herder." 


n. 

Herder's  friend  and  admirer,  John  Paul  Richter, 
at  home  called  Jean  Paul,  was  one  of  the  most  singular 
and  original  writers  of  his  age.  His  works  are  difficult 
to  read ;  his  character  and  place  as  an  author  not  easy 
to  determine.  In  the  old  Spanish  plays,  the  part  of 
the  buffoon  is  conspicuous.  He  has  the  readiest  wit, 
the  greatest  shrewdness,  the  happiest  invention.  Not 
a  responsible  actor  in  the  drama,  he  is  the  coolest  spec 
tator,  and  all  the  while  observes  with  judgment.  He 
sees  all  that  there  is  that  is  ludicrous  in  connexion 
with  sublimity;  he  moralizes  often  in  an  elevated 
strain,  but  his  sentimental  borders  on  the  burlesque, 


174  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

and  his  sublimity  partakes  of  rant.  Does  not  the 
world  give  cause  for  the  existence  of  such  a  being? 
Are  not  the  grandest  things  which  human  power  can 
produce,  found  by  the  side  of  something  inexpress 
ibly  mean?  In  the  genuine  Harlequin,  the  keen 
sensibility  to  stiblime  emotions,  is  united  to  a  pow 
erful  talent  at  ridicule;  and  raillery  and  irony  are 
blended  with  sincere  admiration  and  eloquence.  Of 
this  character  our  English  Milton  has  nothing ;  Scott 
has  not  much ;  Moore  a  great  deal ;  Byron,  except  for 
his  misanthropy,  most  of  all;  especially  in  his  later 
period.  Now,  if  we  were  to  express  our  view  of  Jean 
Paul's  place  in  the  great  drama  of  letters,  we  should 
call  him  the  sublime  Harlequin.  He  philosophizes  as 
wisely  and  as  morally  as  Hamlet  and  the  churchyard 
clowns  put  together ;  like  them  he  is  as  likely  to  sing  at 
grave-making  as  at  any  time,  and  would  be  as  ready  to 
defend  religion  with  a  jest  as  with  an  argument.  He 
is  more  nearly  mad,  and  not  less  given  to  muse, 
than  the  Prince  of  Denmark ;  and  poor  Yorick  could 
not  have  surpassed  him  in  infinite  jest  and  excellent 
fancy.  The  first  impression  produced  by  almost  any 
of  his  works,  will  be  a  bewildering  one ;  but  he  who  is 
once  initiated  into  his  manner,  will  readily  acknowledge 
him  to  be  one  of  the  most  original  and  able  writers  of 
his  time. 

Hoffmann  followed  in  the  steps  of  Jean  Paul,  but 
had  neither  the  deep  philosophy,  nor  the  fine  moral 


THE  AGE  OP  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     175 

sense  of  his  master.  His  was  at  once  the  madness  of 
the  musician,  the  man  of  letters,  and  the  libertine; 
his  mind  was  as  free  from  restraints,  as  his  life  from 
rule ;  and  as  he  had  few  sympathies  with  man,  he  de 
lighted  in  the  terrors  and  excitements  of  supernatural 
existences.  Striving  after  terrific  interest,  he  de 
generates  into  common-places.  His  enthusiasm  is 
foaming  and  turbulent ;  his  eloquence  is  but  in 
flashes ;  and  his  feverish  fondness  for  unnatural  ex 
citement  in  literary  composition,  led  him  to  fantastic 
inventions.  His  life  was  the  life  of  a  spendthrift 
Epicurean,  his  death  the  death  of  a-  Stoic.  Nothing 
that  he  has  written  is  of  such  terrific  power,  as  his 
own  conduct  in  the  illness  which  followed  his  ex 
cesses  and  terminated  his  life.  It  was  the  criminal 
grinning  at  the  executioner,  as  the  wheel  crushed 
him. 

Of  Biirger  the  best  ballads  are  well  known  to  the 
English  reader,  for  Scott  has  been  willing  to  translate 
them.  His  private  history  and  character  were  too 
wretched  to  admit  of  scorn,  and  too  pitiful  to  win  re 
spect.  His  poems  were  made  the  subject  of  a  review  by 
Schiller,  in  which  the  great  bard  has  developed  his  own 
views  of  his  art,  with  too  much,  perhaps,  of  speculative 
criticism,  but  with  a  noble  sublimity  of  feeling.  The 
critique  condemned  Biirger,  as  deficient  in  delicacy 
and  the  conception  of  ideal  beauty, — in  every  quality 
which  constitutes  the  essence  of  poetry.  It  is  usual  to 


176  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

charge  Schiller  with  an  error  of  judgment,  resulting 
from  his  temporary  addiction  to  Kant's  philosophy. 
But  whatever  objections  may  be  brought  against  his 
abstract  reasonings,  his  judgment  on  Burger's  poetry 
is  in  no  wise  too  severe. 

The  Stolbergs  have  hardly  a  claim  to  be  remem 
bered  out  of  their  own  country ;  and  the  good,  rural, 
homely,  plain-spoken  Voss  never  tasted  the  stream  of 
Helicon,  though  he  was  a  very  learned  and  very  accu 
rate  translator  and  editor.  But  as  a  man,  he  wins  our 
esteem  for  his  simplicity  and  independence.  The 
manners  and  household  of  Voss  were  distinguished 
for  hospitable  frugality.  "I  thank  God,"  he  would 
say,  "for  leaving  me  cheerfulness  in  my  old  age." 
And  again :  "I  have  lived  a  happy  life,  dividing 
my  tune  between  my  books  and  my  garden."  He 
even  imagined  himself  to  be  possessed  of  philosophic 
tranquillity,  though  he  was  the  most  contentious 
scholar  of  his  day.  He  was  always  ready  for  battle. 
He  foamed  at  the  bare  name  of  nobility ;  at  the  mere 
mention  of  feudal  knights,  he  raised  a  hue  and  cry 
after  the  thieves  and  robbers ;  and  as  some  men, 
according  to  Shylock,  cannot  contain  themselves  if 
they  hear 

"  The  bagpipe  sing  in  the  nose, 
And  some  are  mad  if  they  behold  a  cat," 
so  the  excellent  and  ingenuous  Voss  caught  fire  at  the 
name  of  a  rival  or  an  antagonist. 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     177 

Whoever  touched  Voss  on  republicanism,  struck 
the  key-note.  A  splendid  eulogy  of  Washington  and 
Franklin  would  follow ;  but  the  discourse  would  proba 
bly  terminate  in  a  tirade  against  the  caste  of  privileged 
birth,  of  which  the  chief  privilege,  he  would  say,  was, 
never  to.be  hanged  on  the  gallows. 

Voss's  hobby-horse  was  the  danger  impending  over 
the  Protestant  church.  He  would  tell  a  long  story 
about  secret  societies  for  making  proselytes  to  the 
bosom  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith ;  and  rave  against 
mystical  tendencies ;  any  one  who  lived  on  terms  of 
amity  with  a  Roman  Catholic,  was  to  him  already  little 
better  than  a  renegade;  and  he  had  the  most  rare 
talent  at  getting  scent  of  a  disguised  .Jesuit. 

He  was  a  religious  man  ;  but  his  religion  partook 
of  the  sternness  of  his  own  character.  He  pardoned 
nothing  to  devout  weakness,  or  to  superstitious  feelings. 
"  This  life,"  said  he,  "  is  but  the  prelude ;  action  is 
happiness  here,  and  without  action  there  can  be  no 
Heaven."  And  then  he  would  get  into  a  passion  and 
hotly  declare  that  he  could  not  endure  the  thought  of 
Heaven  as  a  place  of  absolute  rest,  or  of  blessedness, 
where  the  blessed  have  nothing  to  do.  But  what 
activity  could  such  a  man  mean  ?  An  English  philos 
opher  avowed  his  hope,  that  his  soul  after  death  would 
revisit  the  scenes  of  its  earthly  interests,  and  hover 
with  delight  round  his  laboratory  and  his  chemical 
apparatus ;  and  they  say  Johann  von  Miiller  trusted  in 

12 


178  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

the  next  world  to  be  able  to  continue  making  excerpta 
for  his  universal  history.  The  heroes  of  Greece  be 
lieved  they  should  still,  in  the  realm  of  spirits,  pursue 
each  "  his  favorite  phantom ;  "  and  the  Indian  hunter 
looks  for  ampler  grounds  for  the  chase, 

"  The  hunter  and  the  deer  a  shade." 

By  the  same  rule  Voss  might  expect  still  to  declaim 
intolerantly  against  intolerance,  still  to  oppose  bigotry 
with  a  bigotry  yet  more  obstinate,  to  scold  at  rivals,  to 
unmask  Catholics  in  disguise,  to  translate  good  verses 
and  write  dull  ones,  and  to  live  on  for  ever  in  the  tur 
moils  of  controversy.  He  has  at  last  gone  to  his  rest 
with  "  the  patriarchs  of  the  infant  world,"  and  now  we 
trust  he  has  found,  that  men  of  all  religious  sects,  and 
even  Jesuits  themselves,  may  reach  the  world  of  un 
clouded  truth ;  that  mistakes  in  literary  opinions  are 
of  no  more  moment  than  the  dust  we  tread  upon ;  and 
that  all  errors  are  terminated  and  forgiven  in  the  re 
gions  of  perfect  knowledge. 

Of  the  Schlegels,  the  successful  founders  of  a  criti 
cal  school,  the  extraordinary  merit  as  critics,  dis 
played  both  in  contributions  to  public  journals  and  in 
elaborate  works,  is  cheerfully  acknowledged.  Still  the 
light  of  Lessing  outshines  them  far,  and  not  to  them, 
but  to  that  great  master,  belongs  the  credit  of  having 
given  to  the  public  mind  in  Germany  the  impulse 
which  has  finally  extended  its  influence  through  the 
world. 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     179 

Of  Tieck,  an  industrious  and  gifted  adherent  of 
the  critical  school  of  the  Schlegels,  the  brightest  poetical 
side  is  the  polemical.  Whilst  the  Schlegels  criticised, 
he  wrote  humorous  and  ironical  dialogues,  poems,  and 
tales.  He  contributed  essentially  to  the  emancipation 
of  literature  from  pedantic  rules,  though  at  the  same 
time  the  tendency  of  his  works,  and  of  those  of  his 
school  generally,  has  likewise  been  to  produce  a  feeble 
and  affected  imitation  of  natural  excellence. 

The  fragments  of  Hardenberg,  who  wrote  under 
the  name  of  Novalis,  abound  in  exaggerated  opinions, 
and  also  in  flashes  of  real  sagacity ;  but  a  sickly  hue 
belongs  both  to  his  poetry  and  his  prose.  He  is  like 
Laocoon  whom  the  sculptor  represents  with  the  mouth 
open,  as  if  to  shriek ;  only  in  the  statue,  the  agony  of 
the  father  excuses  the  expression  of  anguish ;  but  sym 
pathy  is  not  willingly  extended  to  the  melancholy  of  a 
young  man,  with  whom  life  had  not  dealt  harshly. 
Yet,  in  a  serious  hour,  the  detached  thoughts  and 
mournful  songs  of  Novalis,  will  be  read  with  interest. 

in. 

We  do  not  attempt  an  enumeration  of  even  those  men 
of  letters,  who  within  the  last  fifty  years  have  gained 
success  in  Germany.  That  country  boasts  of  more  than 
twelve  thousand  living  authors,  of  whom  more  than  a 
thousand  are  female.  In  1823,  a  curious  observer 
was  able  to  count  two  hundred  and  eighty-seven 


180  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

dramatic  poets  alone.  In  the  sciences,  which  are  carried 
forward  by  industry  and  research,  no  discovery  may  be 
neglected;  but  in  works  of  invention,  the  few  great 
masters  of  a  foreign  nation  alone  pass  the  boundary  of 
their  native  land  to  become  denizens  of  the  world. 

Of  these  Schiller  is  one  of  the  greatest.  No  poet 
ever  possessed  more  of  the  affection  of  his  countrymen. 
His  fame  has  been  cherished  by  them  with  a  tender 
ness  approaching  to  a  personal  attachment.  His 
nature  was  frank,  earnest,  and  virtuous ;  and  com 
manded  respect  for  the  man,  who  sacrificed  every 
thing  to  his  art  and  the  culture  of  his  genius.  WJjen 
the  news  of  his  untimely  death  was  promulgated,  men 
mourned,  as  though  each  family  had  lost  a  favorite  in 
mate.  His  life  was  one  continued  struggle.  The  se 
verest  censures  ever  passed  upon  his  faults,  have  been 
pronounced  by  himself ;  while  he  strove  with  unceas 
ing  zeal  to  emancipate  himself  from  every  influence 
which  could  prevent  his  acquiring  the  highest  moral 
and  poetic  perfection. 

His  theory  of  poetry  led  him  to  consider  beauty  as 
something  independent  of  the  passions  which  it  can 
excite ;  and  to  be  pursued  in  a  sphere,  elevated  above 
the  common  sympathies  of  mankind.  The  poet  was,  in 
his  mind,  a  superior  being,  upon  whom  the  bright  sun 
shine  of  inspiration  was  the  direct  effluence  of  celestial 
light ;  he  might,  indeed,  stoop  to  his  fellow-mortals, 
but  only  to  lift  them  to  the  elevated  regions  of  purity 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     181 

in  which  he  moved.  These  views  were  the  result  of 
patient  study ;  they  commended  themselves  to  an  acute 
and  speculative  mind,  which,  from  its  own  constitution, 
took  no  part  in  the  ordinary  bustle  of  existence.  But, 
when  Schiller  came  to  write,  he  was  not  restrained  by 
cold  rules  within  the  icy  limits  of  an  austere,  or  meta 
physical  sublimity.  In  his  theory  he  derided  nature, 
and  longed  to  depict  the  ideal ;  when  he  invented,  his 
theory  gave  him  dignity,  correctness,  and  a  noble  firm 
ness  of  character ;  but  his  feelings  hurried  him  to 
throw  himself  as  a  penitent  at  the  feet  of  nature, 
and  she,  like  a  doting  mother,  readily  forgave  him 
his  temporary  absence,  in  joy  at  his  return. 

An  only  child  of  fond  parents,  Schiller  was,  from 
early  life,  sensitive  to  every  noble  quality,  and  disdain 
ful  towards  all  that  is  common  and  mean.  His  educa 
tion  was  military,  and  opposed  to  his  natural  tastes, 
which  he  could  nourish  only  in  secret.  Entirely  cut 
off  from  the  world,  confined  within  a  school  which  was 
governed  by  mechanism,  knowing  none  but  his  fellow- 
students,  wholly  unaccustomed  to  female  society,  he 
ventured  to  write  a  play,  while  yet  a  minor,  and  to 
publish  it  a  few  months  after  he  came  of  age.  "  The 
Robbers  "  is  universally  known.  It  is  the  marvellous 
production  of  a  schoolboy  Titan,  endeavoring  to  take 
the  heaven  of  invention  by  storm.  Every  thing  is 
sketched  in  strong  and  glaring  colors;  vices  and 
virtues  are  exhibited  in  their  greatest  light  and  dark- 


182  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

ness,  with  no  intermediate  shades.  It  is  a  monstrous 
production ;  but  spirit  and  genius  move  in  it,  and 
impart  to  it  permanent  life.  His  maturer  taste  was  not 
able  to  improve  it.  The  merits  and  faults  are  so 
mingled,  that  it  is  now  printed  in  its  first  and  bold 
est  form. 

Schiller  attempted  the  career  of  an  actor,  but 
without  success.  In  the  same  period  he  published  two 
other  tragedies,  in  one  of  which  his  burning  zeal  for 
freedom  expresses  itself  in  a  withering  rebuke  of  the 
German  Princes  who  were  then  selling  their  troops  to 
fight  against  American  independence. 

After  some  years,  he  gave  the  world  Don  Carlos, 
in  which  drama  he  unfolds  his  own  heart,  and  gives 
the  noblest  lessons  of  liberty  and  public  justice.  The 
play  is  admirable,  but  has  more  of  eloquence  than  of 
action,  and  more  of  the  careful  and  elaborate  views  of 
a  fine  mind,  than  the  passions  of  real  life. 

The  course  of  Schiller's  destiny  led  him  next  to  the 
pursuits  of  history,  for  he  became  the  successor  of 
Eichhorn,  at  the  University  of  Jena.  Kant  and 
abstract  philosophy  also  won  his  earnest  attention. 
He  applied  himself  to  these  pursuits  seriously,  for 
his  object  was  to  satisfy  his  inquisitive  and  impatient 
spirit.  His  lyre  lay  by  his  side  almost  untouched, 
while  he  was  making  every  effort  to  acquire  within 
himself  that  harmony  which  can  alone  result  from  clear 
convictions.  At  the  same  time  his  rejection  of  the 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     183 

realities  of  being,  and  longing  for  ideal  goodness, 
wasted  his  physical  powers;  and  the  result  of  his 
irregular  and  too  great  application,  was  an  illness 
from  which  he  never  entirely  recovered,  and  which 
contributed  to  impart  more  of  gentleness  to  his  intel 
lectual  character.  He  now  strove  to  reconcile  himself 
with  the  world.  At  this  period,  his  character  was  fully 
established  in  its  great  outlines.  In  early  life  he  had 
broken  away  from  all  patronage.  "  The  public,"  he 
had  exclaimed,  "  is  alone  my  sovereign,  and  my  con 
fidant.  I  belong  to  it  exclusively.  Before  this  tribu 
nal,  and  before  none  other,  will  I  plead.  This  only  do 
I  fear  and  reverence.  I  am  elevated  by  the  thought 
of  bearing  no  chains  but  the  decision  of  the  world,  of 
never  again  appealing  to  any  other  throne  than  the 
soul  of  humanity."  His  noble  nature,  improved  by 
careful  study  of  the  records  of  mankind,  and  raised  to 
contemplative  excellence  by  the  zealous  and  solemn 
study  of  philosophy,  was  now  restored  to  the  career  of 
poetry.  A  series  of  most  beautiful  lyrics,  some 
of  which  are  among  the  best  in  the  literature  of  the 
world,  were  gradually  published,  and  won  universal 
favor.  But  the  results  of  his  investigations  in  history 
and  speculative  science  were  to  be  embodied  in  one 
grand  production.  It  is  not  in  the  narrative  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  but  in  the  tragedy  of  Wallenstein, 
that  the  peculiarities  of  Schiller,  at  this  time,  are  most 
clearly  reflected.  In  the  English  drama,  Macbeth 


184  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

is  the  production  with  which  it  has  the  nearest 
analogies.  In  the  display  of  men,  hurried  to  their 
ruin  by  a  moral  necessity  existing  in  themselves, 
they  are  alike.  But  the  inimitable  master  has  laid 
his  scene  in  remote  and  apocryphal  history ;  in 
Wallenstein,  we  have  real  men,  and  events  all  too 
true  j  and  this  union  of  historic  dignity  and  dramatic 
excellence  was  a  triumph  reserved  for  Schiller. 

Mary  Stuart,  and  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  rapidly 
followed.  In  the  first  of  these,  Schiller  has  succeeded 
better  than  in  any  of  his  works,  in  delineating  woman. 
It  has  in  a  less  degree  than  Wallenstein  the  stem  sub 
limity  which  is  imparted  by  the  unseen  influences  of 
an  avenging  destiny ;  but  it  makes  a  more  direct 
appeal  to  the  human  heart.  The  Maid  of  Orleans  is  a 
dramatic  narrative  written  in  the  spirit  of  legendary 
romance ;  it  is  full  of  striking  contrasts  and  marvellous 
interpositions,  rather  than  a  careful  representation  of  hu 
man  agencies  and  passions.  One  of  its  scenes  furnished 
to  Scott  the  fine  passage  in  Ivanhoe,  where  the  Jewess 
observes  the  battle,  and  describes  its  progress  to  the 
imprisoned  hero. 

The  speculative  tendency  of  Schiller's  mind  led 
him  to  make  an  experiment  of  introducing  the  Greek 
chorus  into  modern  tragedy.  The  experiment  failed, 
and  the  Bride  of  Messina  is  sustained  by  the  splendor 
of  its  several  parts,  not  by  its  general  merits.  The 


THE    AGE    OF    SCHILLER   AND    GOETHE.  185 

poet  returned  at  once  to  the  right  path,  and  history 
again  lent  itself  to  his  genius. 

The  love  of  humanity,  the  zeal  for  freedom  and 
social  progress,  which  pervade  his  lectures,  essays, 
tragedies  and  poems,  made  him  restless  and  anxious, 
in  a  season  of  deep  dejection  for  the  friends  of  liberty. 
For  him  the  French  Revolution  seemed  to  have  failed 
from  the  vices  of  its  friends,  and  the  despotism  by  which 
it  was  succeeded.  The  eagle  of  Prance  was  invading 
Germany ;  public  virtue  in  sovereigns  seemed  exhaust 
ed  ;  the  people  had  not  yet  been  disciplined  into  inde 
pendent  action.  A  deep  gloom  was  settling  on  the 
prospects  of  his  country.  The  darkness,  which  to  him 
overspread  the  civil  world,  was  as  thick  as  that  which 
shut  the  bard  of  Paradise  from  "  the  sight  of  vernal 
bloom,  or  summer's  rose ; "  and,  like  Milton,  Schiller 
did  but  the  more  turn  inward,  preserving  his  trust  un 
impaired  in  the  truths  and  in  the  providence  which 
were  to  rescue  liberty,  and  peace  and  virtue.  At  the 
opening  of  this  century  it  had  seemed  to  him  that  they 
could  nowhere  find  a  refuge ;  and  reproving  alike  the 
military  ambition  of  Prance  and  the  commercial  avarice 
of  England,  he  complained  despondingly  that  the  search 
on  earth  is  vain  for  the  happy  region  where  freedom  pre 
serves  its  freshness,  and  the  beautiful  youth  of  hu 
manity  its  bloom.  But  hope  never  expired  within 
him ;  in  his  last  great  production,  he  sketches  Switzer 
land  and  the  life  of  the  Swiss  in  unaffected  simplicity, 


186  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

and  founds  a  work  of  the  subliniest  character  on  the 
patriotism  of  a  commonalty  of  peasants  and  herdsmen. 
His  heart  in  its  anguish  dwelt  in  the  vales  of  Uri  and 
Unterwalden,  the  rocky  shores  of  the  lake  of  Lucerne, 
among  the  consecrated  scenes  of  Altorf  and  Kiissnacht 
that  had  echoed  the  voice  and  borne  the  footsteps  of 
William  Tell.  The  poem  which  conimemorates  the 
emancipation  of  the  three  cantons,  is  the  masterpiece 
of  Schiller's  genius.  In  it  he  gave  lessons  of  national 
independence,  of  resistance  to  tyrants,  of  the  inalien 
able  right  of  the  pure,  laborious,  peaceful  husbandmen, 
to  govern  themselves.  The  interest  of  the  play  rests 
not  on  William  Tell ;  but  with  infinite  skill,  winch  no 
thing  but  affectionate  sincerity  could  have  inspired,  it 
is  diffused  through  the  little  nations  that  were  lifting 
themselves  into  political  independence,  and  gathers 
round  the  action  more  than  the  man.  In  this  Schiller 
has  not  been  surpassed  by  poet  or  historian.  Such 
was  his  last  work,  completed  while  the  hour  of  death 
was  drawing  near. 

As  the  hart  pants  for  the  water  brooks,  he  panted 
for  the  realms  of  truth,  which  puny  despots  and  time- 
servers  could  not  invade.  He  had  studied  the  whole 
history  of  man,  and  nowhere  found  his  visions  realized. 
"It  is  the  dove,"  says  a  French  biographer,  "that 
quitted  the  ark  to  wander  over  ah1  the  earth,  but  find 
ing  nowhere  rest  for  its  wing,  returned  to  its  heaven- 
appointed  shelter."  Just  a  few  instants  before  his  last 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     187 

breath,  a  friend  inquired  of  him  how  he  was,  and  re 
ceived  the  answer,  "  Calmer  and  calmer."  * 

"E'en  then,"  says  our  own  Bryant,  who  is  of  a 
kindred  character,  but  born  in  a  happier  land, 

"  E'en  then  he  trod 
The  threshold  of  the  world  unknown ; 
Already,  from  the  seat  of  God, 

A  ray  upon  his  garments  shone — 
Shone  and  awoke  that  strong  desire 

For  love  and  knowledge  reached  not  here, 
Till  death  set  free  his  soul  of  fire, 
To  plunge  into  its  fitter  sphere. 
Then  who  shall  ten,  how  deep,  how  bright, 

The  abyss  of  glory  opened  round ; 

How  thought  and  feeling  flowed,  like  light, 

Through  ranks  of  being  without  bound !  " 

Thus  he  died ;  just  as  the  world  was  hoping  from 

his  maturity  a  series  of  works  that  might  be  associated 

with  the  best  of  the  literary  treasures  which  it  has 

taken  ages  for  human  genius  to  accumulate.     And  yet 

he  has  been  declared  happy  in  the  period  of  his  death. 

In  the  memory  of  coming  generations,  men  live  as  they 

are  found  when  the  angel  of  death  summons  them 

away.     Schiller  will  be  ever  present,  as  dying  in  the 

noonday  of  his  glory ;  and  to  gratitude  for  all  that  he 

was  permitted  to  accomplish,  there  will  ever  be  united 

a  regret  for  what  humanity  has  lost.     Yet   to   him 

death  was  seasonable.     Another  year,  and  he  would 


188  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

have  seen  the  army  of  a  detested  enemy  in  his  home, 
and  the  flag  .of  foreign  tyranny  waving  in  triumph  over 
the  fairest  parts  of  the  land  of  his  nativity. 

If  we  should  compare  any  English  poet  with 
Schiller,  it  would  be  Byron.  And  yet  there  is  still 
more  room  for  contrast  than  comparison.  Both  were 
restless,  and  found  no  happiness  in  the  world ;  but  one 
was  happy  in  himself:  both  were  of  wild  and  irregular 
habits  of  mind  in  early  years ;  but  of  one  the  life  was 
pure :  both  imparted  the  character  of  their  respective 
passions  to  all  the  objects  which  they  represented ;  but 
the  one  was  soured  to  misanthropy,  while  the  other 
glowed  with  benevolence.  Schiller  has  produced  no 
thing  like  the  narrative  poems  of  Byron ;  but  Byron 
must  yield  the  palm  in  the  drama.  Both  are  among 
the  best  lyric  poets  of  modern  times;  but  here  too 
Schiller  is  the  superior.  Both  died  in  the  vigor  of 
life,  the  one  a  martyr  to  his  art,  the  other  to  his  zeal 
for  liberty. 

IV. 

Goethe  and  Schiller  are  an  antithesis.  Schiller, 
though  ennobled,  remained  in  sympathies  essentially  a 
plebeian ;  Goethe  had  the  title  and  the  views  of  a  man 
of  rank :  Schiller  was  proudly  independent,  exhausting 
his  life  in  unrelenting  industry,  rather  than  receive  a 
pension ;  Goethe  had  no  scruple  in  accepting  from  a 
prince  enough  for  wants  which  he  declares  were  not 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     189 

little.  Schiller  had  a  warm  heart,  and  a  mind  which 
would  think  and  utter  itself  freely ;  to  Goethe  the 
affections  were  subjects  for  dissection,  and  he  always 
considered  before  he  spoke.  Schiller's  writings  bear 
evidence  of  his  discipline  in  the  sublime  lessons  of 
Kant ;  Goethe  rarely  troubled  himself  about  philosophy 
or  religion. 

Of  the  value  of  Goethe's  poetry  and  the  result  of 
his  influence  different  opinions  exist ;  but  it  is  too  late 
to  dispute  his  genius.  Pericles  is  acknowledged  to 
have  been  a  consummate  statesman,  because  he  for 
forty  years  preserved  his  supremacy  in  the  councils  of 
one  city;  in  the  German  republic  of  letters,  opinions 
are  as  free  and  as  fickle  as  was  the  popular  voice  at 
Athens ;  and  he  who  has  had  them  in  his  favor  for 
more  than  half  a  century,  and  has  all  that  time  been 
hazarding  his  reputation  by  new  efforts,  has  given  the 
clearest  indications  of  unsurpassed  power.  Extensive 
and  lasting  popularity  is  the  least  questionable  testi 
mony  to  poetic  excellence.  If  the  multitude  and  the 
critic  are  at  variance,  the  latter  is  in  the  wrong.  The 
poet  reflects  the  passions  and  sentiments  of  men ;  he 
cannot  please  long  and  widely,  unless  he  reflects  them 
with  truth. 

The  literary  history  of  Goethe  is  explained  by  his 
private  life.  Frankfort,  the  place  of  his  birth  and  early 
residence,  facilitated  the  acquisition  of  his  native  lan 
guage  in  all  its  richness ;  at  the  same  time  the  free  im- 


190  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

perial  city,  the  theatre  of  the  emperor's  coronation, 
imbued  his  imagination  from  childhood  with  mediaeval 
images.  At  the  university  of  Leipzig  he  found  little 
that  was  in  harmony  with  his  tastes ;  he  was  there 
fore  driven  to  look  into  his  own  heart  and  intrust 
its  experiences  to  verse.  His  earliest  productions 
took  the  color  of  his  studies  and  his  emotions.  The 
strictly  national  drama  of  Goethe  shows  how  fondly  he 
had  looked  into  the  antiquities  of  Germany ;  and  in 
Werther  he  introduced  all  that  observation  and  ex 
perience  had  taught  him  of  the  wasting  vehemence 
of  love. 

Two  years  after  the  appearance  of  Werther,  Goethe 
is  found  at  Weimar,  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  public  ap 
plause,  possessed  of  the  affectionate  regard  of  the 
prince,  who  had  just  inherited  the  ducal  purple,  sur 
rounded  by  the  best  artists  and  scholars  of  Germany, 
and  admired  at  court  by  a  circle  celebrated  for  its 
refinement.  In  due  time  he  was  honored  with  the 
various  civil  titles  which  are  most  coveted  by  his  coun 
trymen.  The  pencil  of  Raphael  almost  made  him 
a  cardinal ;  skill  in  poetry  introduced  Goethe  into  the 
council  of  his  sovereign ;  but  he  never  was  withdrawn 
from  literature  by  political  ambition. 

A  change  went  forward  in  the  character  of  Goethe's 
mind.  Though  possessed  of  public  favor,  and  con 
scious  of  unexhausted  resources,  he  for  twelve  years 
published  nothing  of  importance ;  but  the  society  of 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     191 

Weimar,  a  tour  in  Switzerland,  reflection  and  study, 
contributed  each  in  its  degree  to  finish  his  education  as 
a  poet.  At  last,  in  1786,  he  was  seized  with  an  irre 
sistible  longing  to  go  beyond  the  Alps,  and  his  sovereign 
enabled  him  to  gratify  the  passion  for  travelling  ;  that 
passion,  which  is  stronger  than  ambition,  and  stronger 
than  love ;  which  has  relieved  dethroned  monarchs  of 
their  weariness,  and  allured  statesmen  from  public  life ; 
which  tempted  Ca?sar  from  victory  and  Cleopatra 
to  gaze  at  the  cataracts  of  the  Nile,  and  drew  an 
illustrious  Swedish  queen  from  a  reign  of  glory  to 
the  ruins  of  Rome.  Had  Italy  nothing  but  its  sky 
and  its  scenery,  where  nature  has  exhibited  her  love 
liest  forms ;  or  its  poetry,  which  contains  all  that  can 
delight  and  elevate  the  imagination ;  or  its  music, 
chanted  in  the  streets,  given  in  full  choirs  in  the 
churches,  charming  the  senses  by  the  artful  combina 
tions  of  harmony  in  operas,  and  heard  in  all  its  ten 
derness  and  perfection  at  the  vespers  in  St.  Peter's  and 
the  choruses  of  the  Holy  Week ;  or  its  buildings  and 
statues ;  or  its  pictures,  which  exhibit  not  only  all  that 
is  most  pleasing  in  real  life,  but  all  ideal  loveliness ;  or 
its  recollections,  not  of  the  ancient  heroes  of  the  com 
monwealth  only,  but  of  Petrarch,  Raphael  and  Michael 
Angelo ;  or  lastly,  the  race  which  now  dwells  there  ;  it 
would  be  a  country  fit  to  enrich  the  mind  of  the 
traveller  with  images,  excite  and  diversify  his  inventive 


192  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

powers,  and  impart  a  poetic  impulse  to  all  his  faculties. 
Goethe  entered  it  in  the  best  years  of  early  manhood, 
possessing  a  cultivated  taste,  a  lively  perception  of  the 
beautiful,  a  judgment  improved  by  study  and  fitted  to 
observe  and  compare.  What  wonder,  then,  that  a  resi 
dence  in  Italy  of  two  years  should  have  formed  an 
epoch  in  his  personal  history. 

At  the  period  of  his  return  from  Italy,  the  intellec 
tual  character  of  Goethe  was  matured.  His  Faust  had 
been  an  invention  of  his  youth,  but  was  now  finished 
with  the  severest  care.  His  Iphigenia,  and  his  Tasso, 
are  monuments  of  industrious  genius,  which  his  coun 
trymen  admire  with  one  voice,  and  which  posterity  will 
not  suffer  to  perish.  His  memory  was  all  the  while 
acquiring  new  stores  of  thought,  and  his  love  of 
art  was  gratified  by  the  most  varied  studies.  And 
this  is  perhaps  the  only  point,  in  which  the  inventive 
writer  has  the  advantage  over  the  man  of  science. 
The  latter  is  more  sure  that  industry  will  ultimately  be 
followed  by  reputation  and  opportunities  of  usefulness ; 
yet  he  must  limit  his  investigations,  and  subordinate 
general  culture  to  his  particular  pursuit.  But  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  former  to  roam  wherever  there  are  flowers, 
to  contemplate  excellence  of  one  particular  class  till 
the  mind  has  become  enriched  by  it,  arid  then  to  pass 
onwards  to  new  stores  of  information  and  new  sources 
of  beauty ;  so  that  every  principle  of  human  nature, 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     193 

every  passion,  feeling,  and  power  may  be  developed, 
disciplined,  and  brought  to  its  highest  perfection. 

The  later  works  of  Goethe  are  characterized  by 
dignity,  composure,  and  deliberation.  Having  ac 
quired  a  knowledge  of  man  by  a  ready  talent  at  obser 
vation,  and  having  possessed  himself  of  extensive  learn 
ing,  which,  though  it  may  in  itself  be  barren,  fertilizes 
and  adorns,  he  continued  to  write  with  perfect  self- 
possession,  to  plan  with  coolness,  and  to  finish  with 
effort  and  care.  In  a  word,  the  years  of  his  appren 
ticeship  were  over,  and  he  had  become  a  consum 
mate  master  in  his  art.  Werther  had  been  written 
in  four  weeks.  His  productions  were  no  longer 
the  accidental  effusions  of  genius,  but  the  finished 
works  of  an  artist,  considerate  in  the  use  of  his  re 
sources,  and  regularly  and  harmoniously  advancing  to 
the  accomplishment  of  his  design.  The  dramatic  poem, 
Tasso,  the  performance  in  which,  perhaps,  the  German 
language  appears  in  its  most  perfect  state,  bears  the 
marks  of  long  study  and  care ;  and  Wilhelm  Meister 
occupied  its  author  for  more  than  fifteen  years. 

If  Goethe,  amidst  his  unequalled  success  in  Ger 
many,  has  not  in  the  same  degree  obtained  the  suf 
frages  of  other  nations,  the  causes  exist  in  the  character 
of  his  works.  Instead  of  describing  sentiments  of  ten 
derness  and  true  humanity,  he  has  more  frequently 
sketched  the  sorrows  which  spring  from  the  imagina 
tion,  and  the  vices  of  refinement.  In  Germany,  the 
13 


194  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

characters  in  the  Elective  Affinities  are  acknowledged 
to  be  drawn  with  truth;  in  the  United  States,  the 
book  would  be  thrown  aside  as  a  false  and  dangerous 
libel  on  human  nature. 

Among  the  ancients  we  hear  nothing  of  the  tor 
ments  of  a  diseased  or  ill  regulated  mind,  at  least  till 
the  age  of  Sappho.  A  man  like  Rousseau  could  not 
have  been  formed  under  the  institutions  of  Attica; 
beings  like  Childe  Harold  and  Lara  of  the  English 
poets,  or  Eaust  and  Tasso  of  the  German,  could  not 
have  been  invented  by  an  early  Greek  writer.  Human 
nature,  and  usually  under  a  cheerful  aspect,  as  the  dis 
penser  of  social  happiness  and  the  mother  of  generous 
actions,  was  the  theme  of  the  epic  and  tragic  muse. 
The  bard  of  Chios  was  the  friend  of  man ;  and  in  the 
spirit  of  cheerful  benevolence  exhibits  Glaucus  rejoicing 
in  his  youth  and  glowing  with  generous  emulation ; 
Nestor,  though  he  had  seen  three  races  of  men  fade 
before  him,  still  complacently  contemplating  the  labors 
and  changes  of  being ;  Hector,  in  the  season  of  danger, 
yielding  for  a  moment  to  the  softness  of  parental  affec 
tion.  In  Homer,  the  scenes  are  hopeful  as  on  the 
morning  of  a  battle,  when  the  war  horse  is  prancing, 
and  the  hero  exulting  as  a  strong  man  before  a  race. 
But  Goethe  presents  the  field  at  evening,  when  the 
weary  are  retiring  from  the  conflicts  of  life,  with 
mangled  limbs  and  heavy  hearts.  He  depicts  men 
driven  to  despair  and  suicide  by  hopeless  desire,  women 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     195 

languishing  from  a  passion,  which  their  own  innocence 
condemns ;  persons  of  delicate  sensibility  brooding  over 
unreal  pains,  till  they  turn  every  object  in  nature  into 
nutriment  for  then'  weakness,  and  "  drink  misanthropy 
even  from  the  sources  of  love." 

But  not  only  has  Goethe  described  the  perverted 
sentiments  which  grow  out  of  vicious  refinement. 
Some  of  his  works  are  offensive  from  the  indifference 
to  moral  effect,  pervading  both  their  plan  and  exe 
cution.  There  is  cause  to  express  both  surprise  and 
disgust,  that  a  man  of  fine  genius,  conversant  with  the 
sentiments  and  principles  ichick  are  the  living  springs 
of  beauty ;  a  man,  who,  as  he  observes  of  himself,  had 
received  the  veil  of  poetry  from  the  hand  of  truth, 
should  have  stooped  to  win  a  disgraceful  popularity  by 
appeals  tto  the  weakness  and  unworthy  passions  of 
human  nature,  and  darkened  the  clear  revelations  of 
celestial  beauty  by  the  mixture  of  earthly  passions. 

Tor  derelictions  like  these  a  just  indignation  need 
not  spare  its  censure ;  but  it  must  still  be  acknowl 
edged  that  Goethe  has  excelled  all  his  countrymen  in  the 
ease  and  grace  of  his  style ;  and  his  superiority  is  still 
more  conspicuous  in  his  variety.  Indeed,  no  two  of  his 
works  have  the  same  character.  Other  writers  multiply 
their  efforts  on  some  oife  congenial  class  of  subjects ; 
Goethe  is  universal.  He  delineates  not  a  portion  of  the 
world,  but  the  whole.  Misfortune  moves  freely  over  the 
earth,  and  joy  selects  for  itself  no  aristocracy ;  in  like 


196  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

manner,  the  poet  has  allowed  himself  to  wander  into  aL 
classes  of  society,  and  has  brought  back  inspiration 
from  all.  He  treats  successfully  a  multitude  of  sub 
jects  which  would  have  bewildered  inferior  men.  With 
the  step  of  serene  activity  and  unimpassioned  judg 
ment,  he  walks,  like  the  enchanted  hero  of  an  eastern 
romance,  through  the  hundred  halls  of  the  palace  of  in 
vention,  and  all  the  gates  fly  open  at  his  approach ;  but 
hardly  has  he  entered,  when  the  portals  close  again,  so 
that  none  can  follow  in  his  footsteps. 

The  character  of  Goethe's  mind  is  that  of  self- 
possession.  No  pining  passion  prostrates  the  energy 
of  will;  no  crazed  imagination  corrupts  the  healthy 
exercise  of  judgment.  The  author  of  Werther  is  the 
very  last  man  who  would  have  killed  himself  for  love  ; 
the  poet  who  has  delineated  Tasso's  exquisite  sensi 
bility,  wras  never  a  misanthrope  or  a  hypochondriac. 
The  stream  of  life  gushes  for  him  from  a  clear  fountain, 
and  during  all  its  course  has  reflected  the  light  of  day. 
Tin's  it  is,  which  distinguishes  him  from  Rousseau  and 
Byron,  from  Tasso  and  Schiller.  The  peculiar  mark  set 
upon  all  his  writings  is  a  placid  contentment  with  nature 
and  reality.  He  never  turned  in  disgust  from  the  world 
in  which  he  has  his  being.  Life  and  man  are  his 
themes.  He  does  not  require  to  annihilate  every  thing 
that  is  clear  and  individual  around  him,  in  order  to 
gain  free  exercise  for  fancy  in  an  ideal  world ;  he  is 
like  the  fabled  giants,  who  were  strongest  when  their 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     197 

feet  touched  the  earth.  There  is  in  him  no  trace  of 
sickliness  of  mind,  no  lines  worn  by  a  diseased  ima 
gination.  The  beings  who  move,  speak,  and  act  in  his 
works,  are  men  and  women,  of  veriest  flesh  and  blood. 
It  is  of  human  life  that  he  unfolds  the  panorama. 

The  manner  of  Goethe  is  generally  elaborately 
finished.  Let  every  young  §ian  take  a  lesson  from  the 
master  in  this ;  he  always  wrote  with  difficulty.  He 
held  it  a  duty  to  labor,  and  did  not  take  advantage  of 
his  talent  to  write  with  slovenly  facility.  Yet  he  leaves 
upon  his  works  no  traces  of  the  toil  which  they  cost 
him;  we  are  introduced  at  once  to  a  splendid  and 
highly  finished  edifice,  but  all  the  instruments  of 
preparation  are  removed. 

Hence  it  is  that  he  does  not  excel  in  fragments 
merely.  His  works,  as  such,  merit  admiration.  It  is 
not  in  parts  that  he  deserves  praise,  so  much  as  in  the 
whole.  To  the  reflecting  reader  he  furnishes  abundant 
lessons ;  those  who  clap  their  Lands  only  at  fine  lines, 
and  care  little  for  complete  perfection  of  workmanship, 
Goethe  takes  no  pains  to  please.  He  is  uniform  and 
sustained ;  and  his  best  passages  derive  a  peculiar 
charm  from  their  adaptation  and  fitness. 

The  drama  of  Faust  is  the  production  most  nearly 
exhibiting  the  general  cast  of  thought  which  pervades 
the  writings  of  Goethe.  All  its  scenes  have  an  air  of 
reality  ;  and  with  much  that  is  coarse  and  offensive,  it 
describes  vice  in  the  fathomless  depths  of  its  misery. 


198  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

But  the  greatness  of  the  play  consists  in  its  faithful  re 
flection  of  the  sensuality  and  skepticism  which  were 
characteristic  of  the  author's  times.  It  is  an  age  of 
analysis  confessing  its  want  of  all  faith,  and  the  preva 
lence  of  that  spirit  of  doubt,  which  would  gladly  drown 
its  troublesome  restlessness  in  pleasures,  but  only  finds 
itself  more  and  more  disqijipted.  Milton  invests  Satan 
with  the  majesty  of  an  archangel ;  Mephistopheles  is  a 
very  devil,  hideous  and  mean,  ridiculing  all  noble  feel 
ing,  scoffing  at  human  knowledge  and  aspirations ;  and 
he  holds  Faust  so  riveted  to  him,  that  the  poor  victim 
who  had  paid  his  own  soul  to  purchase  the  right  to 
command,  is  neither  able  nor  willing  to  free  himself 
from  grovelling  subjection  to  his  base  companion,  who 
hurries  him  from  one  excess  to  another,  nearer  and 
nearer  to  the  gloom  of  despair. 

A  great  poet  is  the  mirror  of  his  time,  just  as  a 
great  philosopher  is  the  exponent  of  its  general  culture. 
Goethe  is  in  one  sense  the  representative  of  his  age. 
The  philosophy  of  Descartes  had  introduced  the  spirit 
of  skepticism ;  Voltaire,  beginning  with  skepticism, 
had  proceeded  to  the  work  of  analysis ;  and  in  the 
general  proving  to  which  all  things  were  subjected,  a 
generation  seemed  resolved  on  considering  what  was  to 
be  thrown  away,  and  not  what  was  to  be  preserved. 
The  Titans  went  forth  to  destroy;  and  in  the  over 
throw  of  ancient  superstitions,  forms  of  government  and 
thought,  the  old  world  seemed  coming  to  an  end.  At 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     199 

this  period  Goethe  appeared.  He  lived  before  the 
European  mind  was  ready  to  rebuild,  and  after  it 
had  caused  the  time-honored  institutions  to  totter. 

A 

Faith  in  verbal  inspiration  was  gone;  and  it  was 
still  rather  the  fashion  to  deny  the  existence  of  the 
soul,  than  to  look  for  sources  of  truth  within  it.  This 
is  the  moral  and  political  aspect  of  Goethe  as  a  writer 
He  is  not  a  destructive.  He  came  into  a  world  of 
ruins ;  but  he  had  not  vigor  to  continue  the  warfare,  nor 
creative  power  to  construct  anew.  And  thus  he  floated 
down  the  current  passively ;  adhering  to  the  past,  yet 
knowing  that  it  was  the  past ;  no  iconoclast  himself, 
yet  knowing  that  the  old  images,  before  which  men 
bowed  down,  were  demolished.  His  works  have  no 
glimmering  of  faith ;  he  cries  hist !  and  lets  the  multi 
tude  continue  to  adore  the  idol  which  he  knows  to  be 
broken.  His  infidelity  reaches  to  the  affections  and  to 
intelligence.  He  writes  of  love ;  and  it  is  to  recount  its 
sufferings,  and  leave  the  sincere  lover  to  shoot  himself. 
He  WTites  of  a  hero,  the  liberator  of  his  country,  the 
martyr  for  its  independence ;  and  confounding  patriot 
ism  with  libertinism,  he  casts  aside  the  father  of  a 
family,  whom  history  had  extolled,  to  represent  a  reck 
less  seducer.  He  writes  of  a  scholar,  outwatching  the 
bear,  becoming  wise  with  stores  of  all  knowledge,  and 
makes  him  so  dissatisfied  by  his  acquisitions,  as  to  sell 
himself  to  the  Devil  for  the  opportunity  of  sensual 


200  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

enjoyment.  Every  where  the  pages  of  Goethe  are 
stamped  with  evidence,  that  he  has  no  faith  in 
reason,  or  in  the  affections  •  in  God,  in  man,  or  in  wo 
man.  Will  you  have  the  type  of  Goethe's  character  ? 
Behold  it  in  his  conduct.  In  his  earlier  life  he  joined 
the  army  of  Prussians,  when  it  invaded  France  to 
restore  the  Bourbons.  He  was  no  Roman  Catholic ; 
he  knew  that  legitimacy  was  a  worn-out  superstition ; 
he  knew  that  the  old  noblesse  of  France  had  lost 
its  vitality-  and  yet  he  takes  up  arms  to  compel 
the  worship  of  the  public  at  deserted  shrines  and 
broken  altars.  Such  was  he  in  opening  manhood; 
such  was  he  as  a  writer;  such  was  he  throughout 
his  pilgrimage.  Goethe, — who  in  youth  was  indif 
ferent  to  God,  and  reverential  only  towards  rank 
and  the  Bourbons, — Goethe,  who,  in  his  maturity, 
while  his  country  was  trodden  underfoot  by  foreign 
invaders,  quietly  studied  Chinese  or  made  experiments 
in  natural  philosophy, — Goethe,  who  wrote  a  fulsome 
marriage-song  to  grace  the  nuptials  of  Napoleon,— 
Goethe,  the  man  of  letters,  who,  in  his  age  becoming  a 
Duke's  minister,  almost  alone,  with  but  one  ally,  stood 
out  against  the  freedom  of  the  press, — Goethe,  is  the 
poet,  who  represents  the  morals,  the  politics,  the  ima 
gination,  the  character,  of  the  broken-down  aristocracy, 
that  hovered  on  the  skirts  of  defeated  dynasties,  and 
gathered  as  a  body-guard  round  the  bier  of  legitimacy. 
Goethe  is  inferior  to  Voltaire,  not  in  genius  and 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     201 

industry  only,  but  still  more  in  morality.  The  French 
man  '  had  humanity ;  he  avenged  the  persecuted ;  he 
had  courage,  and  dealt  vigorous  blows  for  men  who 
were  wronged.  His  influence  was  felt  in  softening  the 
asperity  of  codes,  in  asserting  freedom  of  mind,  in 
denouncing  the  severity  that  could  hate  protestantism 
and  philosophy  even  to  disfranchisement,  exile,  and  the 
shedding  of  blood.  But  Goethe  never  risked  a  frown 
of  a  German  prince  for  any  body.  He  was  a  prudent 
man,  and,  in  the  great  warfare  of  opinion,  kept  quietly 
out  of  harm's  way.  On  religious  subjects,  he  mys 
tified;  on  political  subjects,  he  was  discreetly  silent, 
except  that  he  adored  rank;  worshipping  birth  like 
intellect,  and  ever  ready  with  flattery  for  the  ruling 
powers. 

Goethe  has  sometimes  been  the  divinity  of  men, 
who  rely  on  the  spontaneous  action  of  human  na 
ture,  and  reverence  impulse  as  the  voice  of  God. 
But  a  just  analysis  does  not  sustain  their  preference. 
He  never  was  carried  away  by  a  holy  enthusiasm  for 
truth  or  freedom.  On  the  contrary,  Goethe  was  one 
of  the  most  wary,  calculating,  circumspect  people  of  his 
times.  He  did  not  speak  unpleasant  things  in  a  tone 
louder  than  a  whisper ;  he  kept  his  thoughts  to  him 
self,  if  his  thoughts  were  likely  to  give  offence  in  high 
places.  In  all  his  works, — except  perhaps  in  some  of 
the  feeble,  rambling,  ill-conceived,  diffusely-executed 
productions  of  his  extreme  age, — there  is  not  a  line, 


202  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

which  would  by  possibility  excite  the  distrust,  alarm 
the  sensitiveness,  or  twinge  the  conscience  of  the  profli 
gate  aristocrat ;  the  empress  of  Austria  will  find  in  every 
line  of  his  poems  to  persons,  that  the  poet  knew  the 
awful  distance  between  himself  and  the  high  per 
sonages  whom  he  flattered ;  and  the  emperor  Francis 
could  consider  his  politics  orthodox.  A  free  press  was 
to  him  not  at  all  desirable.  He  had  already  so  ruled 
his  own  spirit,  that  the  words  it  uttered  had  no  need 
to  fear  an  imperial  censor.  "  Royalists,"  he  says, 
"  Royalists,  who  have  the  power  in  their  hands, 
should  not  talk,  but  act.  They  may  march  troops, 
and  behead,  and  hang.  That  is  all  right.  But  to 
argue  is  not  their  proper  way.  I  have  always  been 
a  royalist.  I  have  let  others  babble.  I  understood 
my  course,  and  knew  what  my  object  was."  In 
history  his  judgments  are  analogous.  Marathon 
was  a  name  that  found  no  interpreter  in  his  breast 
The  field  on  which  the  hopes  of  human  freedom  were 
redeemed,  was  in  his  view  eclipsed  by  Waterloo. 
Or  hear  him  explain  the  true  foundation  of  parties. 
"  Much  is  said,"  exclaims  the  rival,  as  he  calls  himself, 
of  Napoleon,  of  Frederick  II.,  and  of  Luther,  "  Much 
is  said  of  aristocracy  and  democracy ;  but  the  whole 
affair  is  simply  this :  In  youth,  when  we  possess 
nothing,  we  are  democrats ;  but  when  we  have  come 
to  possess  something  of  our  own,  we  wish  to  be 
secure."  "  Freedom,"  he  says,  "  consists  in  knowing 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.    .203 

how  to  respect  what  is  above  us."  And,  again :  "  If  a 
man  has  freedom  enough  to  live  in  health,  and  work  at 
his  craft,  he  has  enough."  Goethe  expresses  his  deep 
sympathy  for  Lord  Byron,  who  had  the  folly  to  speak 
out  all  that  he  thought;  and  he  entreats  "pity"  for 
Lessing,  because  Lessing  would  speak  his  mind,  would 
"meddle,"  as  he  expresses  it,  would  share  the  polem 
ical  character  of  his  times  •  would  insist  on  taking  oc 
casion  to  "vent  his  pique  against  priests  and  against 
princes."  And  Goethe  sums  up  the  whole  mystery  of 
political  wisdom  in  the  foil  owing  maxims :  "  The  art  of 
governing  requires  an  apprenticeship;  no  one  should 
meddle  with  it  before  having  learned  it." — >"Let  the 
shoemaker  abide  by  his  last,  the  peasant  by  his  plough, 
and  the  king  by  his  sceptre."  He  condenses  his  sys 
tem  into  three  lines,  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Tasso : 

"  Der  Mensch  ist  nicht  geboren  frey  zu  seyn ; 
Und  fur  den  Edlen  ist  kein  schoner  Gliick, 
Als  einem  Fiirsten,  den  er  ehrt,  zu  dienen." 
This  was  written  in  the  period  of  the  American  Revo 
lution,  and  is  in  plain  English,  "  Man  is  not  born  to  be 
free."     Mark  the  meaning ;  man  is  not  only  not  born 
free,  but  not  designed  by  Providence  "to  be  free." 

In  morals  and  their  theory,  and  in  philosophy, 
Goethe  is  true  to  the  character  which  he  displayed 
in  actual  life.  In  every  thing  that  relates  to  firmness 
of  principle,  to  love  for  truth  itself,  to  humanity,  to 


204  GERMAN    LITERATURE. 

holiness,  to  love  of  freedom,  he  holds  perhaps  the 
lowest  place.  Byron,  Voltaire,  Shelley,  soar  far  above 
him  in  generous  feelings. 

Yet' Goethe  has  made  an  epoch.  In  the  art  of 
writing  German  he  has  no  superior.  He  entered 
on  the  career  of  letters,  at  a  time  when  his  country 
men  had  not  obtained  mastery  over  their  language, 
and  in  German  style,  he  became  the  instructor  of  his 
nation.  It  has  been  said  of  Dryden,  that  from  his 
writings  sometimes  not  a  word  can  be  spared.  The 
admirer  of  Goethe  may  turn  to  his  prose,  where  a 
golden  style,  slightly  tinged  with  mannerism,  possesses 
clearness,  richness,  moderation,  and  melody ;  to  his 
smaller  poems,  where  often  for  pages  together  no 
word  but  the  right  one  occurs ;  where  each  word 
is  in  its  proper  place ;  and  where  the  little  song, 
in  its  terseness,  its  completeness,  and  its  felicity  of 
expression,  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired.  Coarseness 
abounds ;  but  again  there  are  poems  which  are  of  the 
utmost  delicacy,  pure  in  the  conception  and  harmonious 
in  the  execution.  His  Herman  and  Dorothea  is  a 
strictly  national  idyl,  in  which  the  German  manners 
are  portrayed,  in  a  plain  and  almost  homely  but  grace 
ful  manner,  with  inimitable  truth ;  and  again  in  his 
drama  of  Tasso,  which  has  no  other  object  than  to 
depict  a  condition  of  mind,  the  nicest  shades  of  senti 
ment,  and  the  most  exquisitely  refined  tastes,  are 
described  in  language  of  perfect  harmony.  In  Egmont 


THE  AGE  OF  SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.     205 

we  find  ourselves  transported  to  the  streets  of  Brussels, 
mixing  in  the  popular  clamors  and  complaints  of  the 
disaffected  Netherlands ;  and  it  would  almost  seem, 
that  the  tragic  muse  of  the  Greeks  had  herself  dictated 
Iphigenia  to  a  worthy  disciple  of  Euripides. 

At  the  close  we  must  again  concede  to  Goethe 
that  quality  which  distinguishes  Scott,  and  in  which 
Shakspeare  was  of  all  English  writers  pre-eminent — 
Truth  in  his  descriptions.  This,  combined  with  the 
beautiful  style  and  artistic  skill  of  an  accomplished 
master,  will  preserve  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  taste 
the  fame  of  a  poet,  whom  universal  consent  would 
revere  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  time,  if  he  had  con 
nected  the  culture  of  art  with  the  service  of  humanity. 


TRANSLATIONS. 

[THE  few  pieces  which  follow,  were  written  at  a 
very  early  period  of  life ;  some  of  them  while  the  trans 
lator  was  still  a  student.] 

THE  IDEALS. 

SCHILLER. 

Schiller  having  arrived  at  the  age  of  five  and  thirty, 
bids  farewell  to  the  illusions  of  his  youth. 

And  wilt  thou,  fond  deceiver,  leave  me, 
With  scenes  that  smiled  in  fancy's  eye, 
With  ah1,  that  once  could  glad  or  grieve  me, 
With  all  inexorably  fly  ? 
Can  naught  delay  thy  rapid  motion? 
Can  naught  life's  golden  season  save? 
'Tis  vain  ;  eternity's  vast  ocean 
Receives  the  streamlet's  hastening  wave. 

The  dazzling  light  has  long  been  spent, 
Which  round  the  paths  of  childhood  shone  ; 
The  chains  of  fancy  all  are  rent, 
And  all  her  fair  creations  flown. 


TRANSLATIONS.  207 

The  pleasing  faith  has  passed  away 
In  beings,  which  my  visions  bore  ; 
Reality  has  made  its  prey 
Of  what  seemed  beautiful  before. 

As  once  with  vehement  desire 
Pygmalion  held  in  warm  embrace 
The  statue,  till  sensation's  fire 
Glowed  in  the  marble's  kindling  face ; 
I  threw  the  arms  of  youthful  love 
Round  nature,  till  I  too  was  blest. 
Till  she  began  to  breathe,  to  move. 
To  live  on  my  poetic  breast. 

\ 

The  world,  awakening,  shared  my  bliss  ; 
Eor  me  the  dumb  possessed  a  voice, 
Learned  to  return  me  love's  warm  kiss, 
Peel  my  heart's  music,  and  rejoice. 
Then  lived  to  me  the  tree,  the  rose, 
Then  sang  the  fountain's  silver  fall ; 
And  things,  that  spiritless  repose, 
Echoed  with  joy  my  spirit's  call. 

Itself  a  universe,  the  breast 
Aspired  with  strong,  resistless  force, 
To  act  and  speak,  and  onward  prest 
To  join  in  life's  exciting  course. 


208  TRANSLATIONS. 

While  in  the  bud  it  lay  concealed, 
The  world  appeared  a  boundless  scene ; 
What  have  the  opening  leaves  revealed? 
How  little  !  and  that  little  mean  ! 


By  daring  mind  endued  with  wings, 
Blest  by  his  visions  false  but  gay, 
Untamed  by  anxious  care,  how  springs 
The  youth  along  existence'  way ! 
There's  nought  so  lofty,  nought  so  far, 
To  which  his  wishes  may  not  rise ; 
E'en  to  the  heaven's  remotest  star, 
On  wings  of  bold  design  he  flies. 

How  swiftly  was  I  borne  along ! 

And  happy  feared  nor  toil  nor  care  ! 

With  winning  grace  a  friendly  throng 

Before  me  danced  of  forms  of  air ; 

Love  with  sweet  looks  that  ne'er  could  frown  j 

Joy  with  his  golden  garlands  bright ; 

Glory  adorned  with  starry  crown ; 

And  Truth,  that  blazed  in  solar  light. 

But  ah !  how  soon  these  guardians  flew 
Tar  from  my  side,  ere  life's  mid-day  ; 
The  airy  band  became  untrue, 
And  one  by  one  they  turned  away. 


TRANSLATIONS.  209 

His  rapid  pinions  Joy  extended ; 
The  wells  of  Knowledge  all  were  dry ; 
Doubt's  heavy  clouds  round  Truth  ascended, 
And  hid  her  light  from  mortal  eye. 

I  saw,  too,  Glory's  holy  flowers 
Round  common  brows  profanely  twined ; 
And,  Love,  how  swiftly  flew  thy  hours  ! 
How  soon  I  left  thy  spring  behind  ! 
Still  and  more  still  the  scene  became ; 
More  lonely  seemed  the  rugged  way ; 
And  dying  hope  a  pallid  flame 
Scarce  threw  across  the  darksome  way. 

Of  all  that  gay  and  noisy  crowd 
Will  none  with  faithful  fondness  wait, 
To  raise  me  when  by  sorrow  bowed, 
And  follow  me  to  death's  dark  gate  ? 
0  Friendship  !  thou  my  age  shalt  brighten, 
Thou,  who  dost  heal  our  every  wound, 
With  love  the  cares  of  life  dost  lighten, 
Thou,  whom  I  early  sought  and  found. 

And  thou,  whose  spell  like  hers  can  charm 
The  spirit's  storms,  beloved  Employ ; 
Thou,  who  with  strong,  unwearied  arm, 
Dost  hopeful  raise,  but  ne'er  destroy ; 
14 


210  TRANSLATIONS. 

The  building  of  eternity 
Slowly  thy  patient  toil  uprears, 
From  time's  great  debt  before  we  die, 
Strikes  minutes,  hours,  and  days,  and  years. 


FRIDOLIN,  OR  THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  FORGE. 

SCIULLEB. 
I. 

A  guileless  page  was  Fridolin, 

As  from  my  tale  ye'll  learn ; 
He  served  with  heart,  that  knew  no  sin, 

The  Countess  of  Savern. 
She  was  all  gentleness  to  him ; 
But  any  wish  of  hers,  or  whim, 
The  wayward  bent  of  woman's  will, 
He  would  have  hastened  to  fulfil. 

ii. 
From  morning's  dawn,  when  day  first  shone, 

Till  evening's  twilight  died, 
He  lived  for  her  commands  alone, 

Yet  ne'er  was  satisfied ; 
And  if  she  bade  him  "  Toil  no  more," 
His  glistening  eye  with  tears  ran  o'er ; 
Nor  e'er  from  labor  would  he  rest, 
Till  weariness  his  limbs  opprest. 


TRANSLATIONS.  211 

III. 

Therefore  above  the  servant  crowd, 

She  loved  the  youth  to  raise, 
While  from  her  beauteous  lips  there  flowed 

Incessantly  his  praise. 
Nor  of  her  servants  seemed  he  one ; 
Her  heart  esteemed  him  as  a  son ; 
And  oft  her  eye  reposed  with  joy 
On  the  sweet  features  of  the  boy. 

IV. 

For  this  there  rose  in  Robert's  breast, 

The  huntsman,  deadly  hate ; 
His  envious  bosom  never  ceased 

With  malice  to  dilate. 
And  to  the  count,  whose  honest  heart 
Was  open  to  the  traitor's  art, 
And  quickly  kindled,  he  drew  nigh, 
To  plant  the  seeds  of  jealousy. 

v. 

Thus  with  deceitful  words  he  spake : 

"  0  count,  I  deem  you  blest ; 
No  jealous  doubts  your  slumbers  break, 

Nor  haunt  your  golden  rest ; 
For  you  so  chaste  a  spouse  possess  ! 
Discretion  guards  her  loveliness ; 
And  all  the  wiles  of  wooing  youth 
Were  vain  against  her  virtue's  truth." 


212  TRANSLATIONS. 

VI. 

At  tliis  the  count  with  frowning  brow 

Exclaimed — "  What  say'st  thou,  knave  ? 

I  build  no  trust  on  woman's  vow, 
Unstable  as  the  wave. 

But  though  fair  words  their  hearts  allure, 

My  lady's  troth  I  hold  secure ; 

Love's  eye  on  her  none  dare  to  turn, 

Or  woo  the  spouse  of  Count  Savern." — 

VII. 

The  wily  keeper  speaks — •"  'Tis  clear, 

Contempt  the  fool  deserves, 
Who,  born  to  serve  thee  and  to  fear, 

Thus  from  his  duty  swerves, 
And  to  the  lady  he  obeys, 
An  eye  of  longing  dares  to  raise." 
Trembling  with  wrath  the  count  replies, 
"  The  villain,  that  hath  dared  it,  dies." — 

VIII. 

"  And  can  it  be  ?  the  public  tale 

To  thee  hath  ne'er  been  told  ? 
Yet  what  my  Lord  desires  to  veil, 

My  lips  shall  ne'er  unfold." — 
"  Speak,  wretch,  or  die ;  what  hast  thou  seen  ?  " 
Exclaims  the  count  with  threatening  mien, 
"  Who  hopes  her  favor  to  engage  ?  " — 
"  I  speak,  sire,  of  the  fair-haired  page. 


TRANSLATIONS.  213 

IX. 

The  stripling  hath  a  pleasing  form." 

Thus  he  deceives  his  lord, 
Whose  blood  by  turns  ran  cold  and  warm, 

Thrilling  at  every  word. 
"  And  have  you  truly  never  known, 
That  he  hath  eyes  for  her  alone, 
Of  you  at  table  hath  no  care, 
But  languishes  behind  her  chair  ? 

x. 
Here  in  these  verses  is  confessed 

His  passion's  bold  desire  " — 
"  Confessed !" — "  He  hath  the  countess  pressed 

To  love  with  equal  fire. 
The  lady  is  discreet  and  good, 
She  feared  for  him  your  angry  mood ; 
'Twere  useless  to  repeat  the  tale ; 
Tor  what  to  you  could  that  avail?" 

XI. 

At  this  the  count  grew  wroth,  and  rode 

To  where  a  forest  rose, 
And  fires  in  many  a  furnace  glowed ; 

There  melted  iron  flows ; 
Early  and  late  with  zealous  speed 
The  glaring  flames  his  servants  feed ; 
The  sparks  ascend ;  the  bellows  play ; 
As  though  the  rocks  would  melt  away. 


214  TRANSLATIONS. 

XII. 

There  might  you  see  their  wondrous  force 

Both  fire  and  water  blend ; 
To  urge  the  wheel's  revolving  course 
Their  power  the  torrents  lend ; 
The  works  keep  up  their  ceaseless  chime ; 
The  heavy  hammers  strike  in  time  j 
And  e'en  the  iron  pliant  grows, 
Subdued  and  shaped  by  mighty  blows. 

XIII. 

Straight  at  then-  master's  beck  there  come 
Two  servants  from  their  task ; — 

"  The  first,  whom  I  shall  send  from  home 
To  greet  you,  and  to  ask 

If  ye've  obeyed  your  master  well, 

Him  seize,  and  throw  in  yonder  hell; 

The  flaming  furnace  be  his  grave ; 

I  would  not  see  again  the  slave." 

XIV. 

Infernal  joy  the  demons  feel, 
To  hear  that  dark  behest ; 

For  hardened  were  their  hearts  like  steel ; 

No  mercy  touched  their  breast. 
1  Aloft  the  smoking  pile  they  raise ; 

The  flames  ascend  with  crackling  blaze ; 

They  thirst  for  crime,  and  long  to  slay, 

With  murderous  will,  their  destined  prey. 


TRANSLATIONS.  215 

XV. 

Robert  on  this  his  comrade  calls, 

Who  nought  of  malice  knew ; 
"  Now  haste  thee  to  our  master's  halls  ; 

He  needs  thy  service  true." 
The  count  then  spake  to  Fridolin, 
"  Straight  wend  to  where  my  forge's  din 
Is  heard ;  and  of  my  slaves  inquire, 
If  they've  fulfilled  their  lord's  desire." — 

XVI. 

"  'Tis  mine,"  he  answers,  "  to  obey," 

And  hastes  his  will  to  do ; 
Then  paused — •"  Perchance  my  mistress  may 

Have  duties  for  me  too." 
Before  the  countess  soon  he  bows  ; 
"  Forth  to  the  forge  thy  servant  goes ; 
Thine  is  my  duty ;  lady,  say, 
Thee  can  I  serve  upon  the  way  ?  " 

XVII. 

Thereat  the  countess  called  him  near, 

And  spake  with  gentle  tone ; 
"  The  holy  mass  I  long  to  hear, 

But  sickness  wastes  my  son. 
Go  then,  my  child,  and  on  thy  way 
For  me  in  still  devotion  pray ; 
With  penitence  thy  sins  efface ; 
And  then  for  me  entreat  heaven's  grace." 


216  TRANSLATIONS. 

XVIII. 

The  sacred  charge  was  doubly  sweet ; 

He  rose  and  journeyed  fast ; 
Yet  through  the  neighboring  village  street 

He  had  not  fairly  passed, 
When  on  his  ear  distinctly  swells 
The  solemn  chime  of  matin  bells, 
Which  summon  sinners  to  repent, 
And  taste  the  holy  sacrament. 

XIX. 

"To  fly  from  God  were  surely  sin 

Wlien  in  the  road  we  meet." 

He  sees  the  church,  and  enters  in, 

Yet  hears  few  coming  feet ; 
For  'twas  the  harvest-tide,  and  then 
Its  toil  detained  the  husbandmen ; 
None  came  the  sacred  hymns  to  sing, 
Or  chant  the  mass,  or  censer  swing. 

xx. 

At  once  the  page  resolves  to  stay 

And  serve  as  sacristan ; 
"  Sure  this,"  thought  he,  "  is  no  delay ; 

First  serve  the  Lord,  then  man." 
The  belt  and  stole,  which  priests  should  wear, 
He  hangs  upon  the  priest  with  care ; 
The  burnished  cups  he  next  displays, 
Preserved  for  mass  on  holy  days. 


TRANSLATIONS.  217 

XXI. 

When  this  with  cautious  hand  was  done, 

Before  the  priest  he  stands ; 
Devoutly  to  the  shrine  moves  on,      , 

The  mass-book  in  his  hands. 
And  right  and  left  he  meekly  kneels, 
And  careful  at  the  signal  wheels ; 
And  when  the  words  of  "  Sanctus  "  came, 
His  bell  thrice  tinkled  at  the  name. 

XXII. 

Then  as  the  priest  with  reverence  bowed, 

Kneeling  before  the  shrine, 
And  high,  with  hands  uplifted,  showed 

The  Eucharist  divine ; 
The  sacristan,  observing  well, 
Rings  loudly  with  his  little  bell ; 
All  cross  their  brows,  their  bosoms  beat, 
And  Christ  the  Saviour  kneeling  greet. 

XXIII. 

Thus  careful  he  performed  each  part 

With  readiness  and  skill ; 
He  knew  the  sacred  rites  by  heart, 

And  served  with  cheerful  will  ; 
Served  till  the  close  unwearied  thus ; 
Till  with  "  Vobiscum  Dominus  " 
The  priest  before  the  people  bends, 
The  holy  service  blessing  ends. 


218  TRANSLATIONS. 

XXIV. 

Then  where  the  priests  their  vessels  kept, 

The  sacred  gear  he  laid ; 
With  busy  hand  the  church  he  swept ; 

This  done,  no  longer  stayed ; 
But  now  with  conscience  in  repose, 
Straight  to  the  forge  with  speed  he  goes ; 
And  yet  his  heart  still  bids  him  say 
Twelve  Pater-Nosters  by  the  way. 

xxv. 
And  as  he  sees  the  curling  flames, 

And  near  the  workmen  stand, 
"  Have  ye  obeyed,"  the  youth  exclaims, 

"  Our  master's  strict  command  ?  " 
The  hateful  demons  grin  at  this, 
And  pointing  to  the  hot  abyss, 
"  We  merit  trust,  the  count  will  own, 
For  nothing's  left  of  flesh  or  bone." 

XXVI. 

And  swift  the  nearest  pathway  home 

The  page  returning  took ; 
But  as  his  master  saw  him  come, 

He  gazed  with  doubting  look. 
"Whence   com'st   thou,   wretch?    I  fain   would 

know." — 

"  I  come  from  yonder  forge." — "  Not  so ; 
Or  hast  thou  loitered  by  the  way  ?  " — 
"  My  lord,  I  tarried  but  to  pray. 


TRANSLATIONS.  219 

XXVII. 

As  from  thy  face  my  steps  I  bent 

This  very  morn,  forgive, 
To  ask  my  duty  first  I  went 

To  her,  for  whom  I  live. 
'  Go,  hear  the  mass/  my  lady  said ; 
Her  words  I  willingly  obeyed ; 
And  thrice  my  sacred  beads  went  through 
For  her  salvation  and  for  you." 

XXVIII. 

The  count  was  rapt  in  deep  amaze, 

And  horror  o'er  him  fell ; 
"  What  answer,  where  the  forges  blaze, 

Was  made  thee  ?     Quickly  tell." — 
"  They  pointed  to  the  curling  smoke, 
And  darkly  thus  the  ruffians  spoke ; 
'  We  merit  trust,  the  count  will  own, 
For  nothing's  left  of  flesh  or  bone/  ' 

XXIX. 

"  And  Robert  ?  "  cold  with  curdling  blood 

The  count  impatient  cried ; 
"  This  morn  I  sent  him  to  the  wood ; 

Hast  thou  his  track  espied  ?" — 
"  In  field  and  forest,  sire,  I've  been, 
But  Robert's  footsteps  have  not  seen." — 
"  Now,"  cries  the  count,  and  looks  aghast, 
"  Our  God  himself  hath  sentence  passed." 


220  TRANSLATIONS. 

XXX. 

The  count,  unused  to  actions  bland, 
Beyond  his  wont  grew  kind  ; 

And  grasps  his  faithful  servant's  hand, 
And  hastes  his  spouse  to  find. 

"  I  pray  thy  favor  for  this  child ; 

No  angel  is  so  undefiled ; 

The  traitor's  malice  is  revealed  ; 

God  and  his  hosts  the  guiltless  shield." 


THE   DIVISION    OP   THE   EAIITH. 

SoniLLEE. 

'  Take  ye  the  world,"  cried  Jove  from  heaven's  far  height 
To  mortals ;  "  take  it  all  to  keep,  or  spend ; 
I  give  it  for  your  heritance  and  right, 
But  share  it  wisely,  friend  with  friend." 

To  seize  his  part,  in  busy  haste,  uprose 
Both  young  and  old,  whoever  had  but  hands ; 
The  hunter  through  the  forest  lordly  goes, 
The  farmer  grasps  the  fruit  of  lands. 

•  His  magazines  with  wares  the  merchant  loads, 
The  abbot  stores  the  choicest  vineyards'  wine  ; 
The  king  bars  up  the  bridges  and  the  roads, 
And  loud  proclaims — The  tithe  is  mine. 


TRANSLATIONS.  221 

At  last,  when  the  division  long  was  o'er, 
Prom  some  far  distant  spot  the  poet  came ; 
He  came  too  late !  for  there  was  nothing  more ; 
Owners  appeared  each  gift  to  claim. 

"  Alas  !  Alas !     Shall  I  then,  I  of  all, 
Thy  truest  offspring,  be  forgot  alone  ?" 
Thus  to  the  God  did  he  complaining  call, 
And  threw  himself  before  Jove's  throne. 

"  If  in  the  land  of  dreams  thou  wouldst  delay," 
Replied  the  God,  "  then  quarrel  not  with  me ; 
Where  wast  thou  when  the  world  was  given  away  ?" 
"  I  was,"  replied  the  bard,  "  with  thee. 

"  Mine  eye  hung  dazzled  on  thy  features  bright, 
Mine  ear  upon  thy  heavens'  sweet  harmonies ; 
Forgive  the  soul,  that  blinded  with  thy  light, 
Lost  earth,  to  revel  in  the  skies." 

"  What  shall  I  do  ?  "  says  Jove ;  "  I've  nought  to  give, 
The  harvest,  market,  chase,  no  more  are  mine ; 
But  dost  thou  wish  with  me  in  heaven  to  live, 
Come  when  thou  wilt,  that  heaven  is  thine." 


MY    CREED. 

SCHIIXEE. 

What's  my  religion  ?     None  of  all  the  sects, 
Which  thou  hast  named.     "  And  why  not  ?  "     From 
religion. 


222  TRANSLATIONS-. 


THE    SKEPTICS. 

SOHILLEB. 


Men  now  prove  all  tilings,  search  within,  without ; 
Truth  !  how  canst  thou  escape  the  fierce  pursuit  ? 
With  staves  and  nets  have  they  gone  out  to  take  thee  ; 
Thou,  like  a  spirit,  marchest  through  the  crowd. 


KANT    AND    HIS    COMMENTATORS. 

SCHILLER. 

How  one  rich  man  so  many  beggars  feeds  ! 
When  monarchs  build,  the  draymen  find  employ. 


COLUMBUS. 

SCHILLEE. 

Sail,  fearless  mariner,  though  slower  wits 

Speak  lightly  of  thy  daring,  and  the  hands 

Of  the  spent  helmsman  sink  so  wearily. 

Stih1  to  the  west ;  there  shall  the  shore  be  found, 

Distant,  yet  by  thy  reason  clearly  seen. 

Trust  in  the  God  that  guides  thee ;  follow  still 

The  world's  wide  ocean,  though  its  silent  waves 

Should  nought  reveal ;  for  did  not  yet  the  land 

Exist,  e'en  now  'twould  rise  for  thee  to  being. 

Nature  and  genius  in  eternal  league 

Are  joined ;  and  one  performs,  what  one  has  promised 


TRANSLATIONS.  223 


THE    WORDS    OF    FAITH. 

SCHILLER. 

Three  words  I  repeat ;  and  then*  meaning  is  high ; 

From  spirit  to  spirit  they  go  ; 
Though  with  us,  they  never  are  seen  by  the  eye  ; 

Their  truth  can  the  heart  only  know ; 
The  glory  of  man  overshadowed  will  be, 
When  he  ceases  to  cherish  and  trust  in  the  three. 

For  Liberty  man  was  created ;  in  chains 

His  freedom  he  never  can  lose ; 
Nor  doubt,  though  the  rabble  her  sanctity  stains, 

And  fools  the  high  watchword  abuse ; 
Should  slaves  burst  their  fetters,  be  glad  without  fear ; 
Nor  tremble  at  danger  when  freemen  draw  near. 

And  Virtue  is  more  than  a  perishing  sound ; 

She  can  bloom  in  your  deeds  while  ye  live ; 
The  weakness  of  mortals  your  efforts  may  bound, 

Yet  man  for  perfection  may  strive ; 
The  wisdom  that  pride  from  the  learned  conceals, 
The  life  of  the  guileless  in  action  reveals. 

And  God  lives  ;  his  infinite  spirit  hath  power, 

Though  man's  fickle  will  is  but  nought ; 
High  rules  above  space  and  the  hurrying  hour 

The  Father  of  life  and  of  thought. 
While  the  world  of  decay  and  of  changes  complains, 
Serene  'mid  the  changes  his  spirit  remains. 


224  TRANSLATIONS. 

The  three  words  ye  should  cherish ;  their  meaning 

is  high ; 

Prom  mind  be  they  echoed  to  mind ; 
They  are  with  us,  though  ne'er  are  they  seen  by  the 

eye, 

But  their  witness  within  us  they  find. 
The  glory  of  man  never  darkened  can  be, 
So  long  as  he  firmly  believes  in  the  three. 


THE    FLOWER   ANGELS. 

RlJEOKEET. 

As  delicate  forms,  as  is  thine,  dearest  love, 
And  beauty  like  thine  have  the  angels  above ; 
Yet  men  cannot  see  them,  tho'  often  they  come 
On  visits  to  earth  from  their  heavenly  home. 

Thou  ne'er  wilt  behold  them ;  but  if  thou  wouldst  know 
The  houses,  wherein,  when  they  wander  below, 
The  angels  are  fondest  of  passing  their  hours, 
I'll  tell  thee,  fair  maiden  ;  they  dwell  in  the  flowers. 

Each  flower,  as  it  blossoms,  expands  to  a  tent, 

For  the  house  of  a  visiting  angel  meant ; 

From  his  flights  o'er  the  earth  he  may  there  find  repose, 

Till  again  to  his  sky -built  pavilion  he  goes. 

And  the  angel  his  resting-place  keeps  in  repair, 
As  every  good  man  of  his  mansion  takes  care ; 


TRANSLATIONS.  225 

All  around  he  adorns  it  and  colors  it  well, 
And  much  he's  delighted  within  it  to  dwell. 

True  sunshine  of  gold  from  the  splendor  of  day 
He  borrows,  his  roof  all  with  light  to  inlay  ; 
The  hues  of  each  season  to  aid  him  he  calls, 
And  stains  with  the  brightest  his  bedchamber  walls. 


o 


The  bread  angels  eat,  from  the  flowers'  finest  meal 
He  bakes,  so  that  hunger  he  never  can  feel ; 
He  brews  from  the  dew-drops  a  drink  fresh  and  good, 
And  every  thing  does  which  a  housekeeper  should. 

And  greatly  the  flowers  as  they  blossom  rejoice, 
That  the  angel  has  made  them  the  home  of  his  choice  , 
And  when  from  his  roamings  the  angel  ascends, 
The  flower  falls  asunder,  the  stalk  downward  bends. 

If  thou,  my  dear  lady,  in  truth  art  inclin'd 

The  spirits  of  paradise  near  thee  to  find, 

Give  thought  to  the  flowers,  and  become  their  true 

lover, 
And  angels  around  thee  will  constantly  hover. 

A  flower  do  but  plant  near  thy  window-glass, 
And  through  it  no  image  of  evil  can  pass ; 
When  thou  goest  abroad,  on  thy  breast  let  appear 
A  nosegay,  and  trust  me  "an  angel  is  near. 
15 


226  TRANSLATIONS. 

Do  but  water  the  lilies  at  breaking  of  day, 

Through  the  hours  of  the  morn  thou'lt  be  fairer  than 

they; 

A  rose  at  thy  couch  for  a  sentinel  keep, 
And  angels  will  rock  thee  on  roses  to  sleep. 

No  sorrowful  dreams  can  approach  to  thy  bed, 
For  round  thee  an  angel  his  sentry  will  spread ; 
And  whatever  visions  thy  watchman  to  thee 
Permits  to  come  in,  very  good  ones  they'll  be. 

When  thus  thou  art  kept  by  a  flower- woven  spell, 
Shouldst  thou  now  and  then  dream  that  I  love  thee 

right  well, 

Be  sure  that  with  fervor  and  truth  I  adore  thee, 
Or  the  angel  had  ne'er  set  mine  image  before  thee. 

TO    A    FLOWER. 

ElST. 

• 

That  thou  bloomest  in  colors  the  fairest, 
That  the  sun  paints  the  garment  thou  wearest, 
That  thou'rt  splendid  in  purple  and  gold, 
Can  my  Rose  without  envy  behold. 

That  the  bee  so  often  caresses  thee, 
That  the  sick  man  so  gratefully  blesses  thee, 
And  physicians  report  thou  canst  heal, 
This  my  Rose  hath  no  wish  to  conceal. 


TRANSLATIONS.  227 

For  in  these  and  in  all  things  beside, 
Her  perfection  can  laugh  at  thy  pride ; 
Thou  art  first  of  the  flowers  of  the  field ; 
All  that's  created  to  Rose  must  yield. 

Thy  fair  clothes  will  wither  away ; 
Thy  bright  hues — of  what  use  are  they  ? 
Oft  lurks  poison  thy  petals  beneath ; 
Often  thy  juices  are  laden  with  death. 

What  is  beauty  that  never  can  speak  ? 
What  are  flowers  which  any  may  break  ? 
What  is  grace,  that  can  carol  no  song  ? 
Nothing  to  Rose,  to  whom  hearts  belong. 

What  makes  heaven  of  earthly  hours, 
What  in  beauty  surpasses  the  flowers, 
What  with  Philomel's  voice  may  compare, 
What  is  purer  than  pearls  and  more  rare, 

What  hath  friendliness'  winsornest  art, 
What  by  virtue  can  quicken  the  heart, 
What  hath  attractions  that  never  will  fade, 
Makes  my  Rose  a  faultless  maid. 

A    SICILIAN    SONG. 

MELI. 

Tell  me,  whither  art  thou  going, 
Where  so  early,  little  bee  ? 


228  TRANSLATIONS. 

Still  no  beam  of  day  is  glowing 
On  the  hills  so  near  to  thee. 

Still  the  dews  of  night  are  sparkling 
Every  where  along  the  world ; 

Heed  thee,  lest  thou  injure,  darkling, 
Thy  bright  wings,  so  fine  with  gold. 

See,  the  languid  flowers  are  sleeping, 
Pillowing  'mid  the  leaves  their  heads, 

Softly  closed  their  eyelids  keeping, 
Rest  upon  their  downy  beds. 

But  still  onwards  thou  art  flying, 
Onwards  still,  and  far  away ; 

Tell  me,  whither  art  thou  hieing, 
Little  bee,  thus  ere  the  day  ? 

Is't  for  honey  ?     Why  this  fleetness  ? 

Shut  thy  wings  and  roam  no  more ; 
I  will  show  thee  where  its  sweetness 

Lies  in  unexhausted  store. 

Little  wanderer,  hast  thou  never 
Seen  my  Nice's  beauteous  eyes? 

On  her  lips  there's  honey  ever ; 
Sweetness  there  for  ever  lies. 


TRANSLATIONS.  229 

On  the  lip  of  her,  the  fairest, 

On  my  lovely  maiden's  lip, 
There  is  honey,  purest,  rarest, 

Couldst  thou  there  but  freely  sip. 

PERSIAN    PROVERB. 


The  diamond's  a  jewel,  in  earth  though  it  lie, 
And  dust  still  is  dust,  when  'tis  blown  to  the  sky. 

FROM   THE    ARABIC. 

TAABBETA  SHEBEAS. 

Taabbeta  Sherran  wooed  a  girl  of  the  family  of  the 
Absites.  And  she,  desiring  to  marry  him,  appointed 
the  wedding  day  —  but  when  he  came  to  her  alone,  she 
changed  her  mind  and  rejected  him.  Then  said  he, 
"  What  hath  changed  thee  ?  "  She  answered  :  "  By 
Allah,  thy  renown  is  very  greal,  but  my  family  says  to 
me,  what  will  you  do  with  a  husband,  who  will  be 
killed  to-day  or  to-morrow,  and  leave  you  a  widow  ?  " 
At  this  he  turned  away  and  spake  these  words  :  — 

"  Espouse  not  the  chieftain,  in  conflicts  delighting," 
They  called  to  the  maiden  I  panted  to  wed  ; 

"  When  next  he  shall  share  in  the  perils  of  fighting, 
The  blade  of  the  sword  with  his  blood  shall  be  fed." 


230  TRANSLATIONS. 

Then  doubt  seized  the   maiden;   she  trembled  with 

sorrow ; 
She  feared  that  the  brave  one  who  round  him  had 

flung 

The  night  for  a  robe,  slain  in  battle  to-morrow, 
Would  leave  her  to  mourn  as  a  widow  while  young. 

His  passions  in  slumber  but  seldom  he  hushes ; 

The  wrongs  of  his  sires  to  avenge  is  his  trade ; 
And  thirsting  for  prey  like  a  whirlwind  he  rushes 

To  strike  his  dark  foe,  in  full  armor  array'd. 

To  cope  with  his  arm  strive  the  young  men,  who  cherish 
A  wish  for  their  prowess  in  war  to  be  known, 

And  ennoble  their  tribe ;  as  beneath  him  they  perish, 
They  cannot  increase  the  renown  he  has  won. 

The  caves  of  wild  beaste  give  him  shelter  till  morning  j 
The  broods  of  the  forest  grow  used  to  his  ways  ; 

And  as  he  goes  forth  at  the  light's  early  dawning 
They  heed  not  his  presence  but  fearlessly  graze. 

They  see  the  young  archer  who  joys  not  in  chases, 
Nor 'loves  'gainst  the  beasts  the  sharp  arrow  to  send; 

And  oh !  could  they  warm  to  affection's  embraces, 
The  hand  of  affection  they'd  reach  to  their  friend. 


TRANSLATIONS.  231 

Oft  lies  he  in  waiting,  then  suddenly  flashes 
With  might  on  the  warriors  he  longs  to  engage ; 

Down,  down  on  his  foes  from  the  ambush  he  dashes, 
And  ever  will  dash,  till  he's  chilled  thro'  with  age. 

The  masters  of  camels  complain  they  have  found  him 
A  plague,  ever  seizing  on  herds  not  his  own ; 

Yet  chase  him  they  dare  not  when  comrades  are  round 

him ; 
And  chase  him  they  dare  not,  e'en  when  he's  alone. 

He,  that  clings  to  his  enemy,  yields  up  his  breath 

Or  sooner  or  later  on  places  of  death  ; 
And  long  should  I  nourish,  well  know  I,  that  yet 

Death's  blade,  flashing  brightly,  must  one  day  be  met. 


THE    MOURNFUL    HISTORY    OF    THE    NOBLE    WIFE    OF 
ASAN    AGA. 


What  so  whitely  gleams  in  yonder  wood  ? 
Is  it  snow  ?  or  is't  the  swan's  white  brood  ? 
Were  it  snow,  'twould  melt  beneath  the  day  ; 
Were  it  swans,  they  would  have  flown  away. 
'Tis  not  snow,  nor  swans,  that  hide  the  ground  ; 
Asan  Aga's  tents  are  spread  around  ; 
Languishing  of  wounds  he  suffers  there  ; 
Mother,  sister,  to  his  couch  repair  ; 


232  TRANSLATIONS. 

But  liis  cherished  wife  remains  at  home ; 
Stayed  by  bashful  love,  she  dares  not  come. 
Healed  his  wounds  ;  yet  ere  he  left  his  tent, 
To  his  wife  a  hard  behest  he  sent ; 
"  In  my  court  with  mine  no  longer  wait ; 
Thou  shalt  dwell  no  more  within  my  gate." 

• 

When  she  heard  her  husband's  stern  commands, 
Smote  with  grief,  the  faithful  woman  stands ; 
Sounds  of  trampling  horse  anon  were  heard, 
She  foreboded,  "  Asan  comes,  my  lord :  " 
Downward  from  the  tower  she  runs  to  leap, 
But  her  two  fair  daughters  near  her  weep ; 
Crying,  Asan's  horses  draw  not  near ; 
Comes  thy  brother  Pintorovich  here." 

And  to  meet  her  brother  she  descends ; 
Sobbing  loudly  o'er  his  neck  she  bends ; 
"  See  thy  sister's  shame ;  my  lord  doth  drive 
From  her  home  the  mother  of  these  five." 

Silent  was  her  brother ;  forth  he  drew, 
Bound  in  silk  of  deepest  scarlet  hue, 
Her  divorce,  which,  written  with  due  care, 
Bids  her  to  her  mother's  house  repair, 
And  dissolves  her  ancient  nuptial  vows, 
That  she's  free  to  take  another  spouse. 


TRANSLATIONS.  233 

When  the  lady  saw  the  fell  divorce, 
That  dissolved  her  nuptial  vows  perforce, 
Kissed  she  first  the  foreheads  of  her  sons, 
Kissed  her  daughters'  cheeks,  the  lovely  ones, 
But  for  grief  she  cannot  turn  away 
From  the  babe  that  in  the  cradle  lay. 

And  her  brother  bids  the  mourner  speed, 
Swings  her  lightly  on  the  rapid  steed ; 
With  the  trembling  lady  forth  he  rode, 
Hastening  to  his  father's  high  abode. 

Short  the  time,  not  seven  days  o'er  them  ran, 

Short  the  time,  and  many  a  princely  man 

Woos  our  lady  in  her  widowed  life, 

Woos  our  lady  for  his  wedded  wife. 

Most  renowned,  Imoski  Cadi  wooed ; 

Of  her  brother  thus  the  lady  sued  ; 

"  I  conjure  thee,  brother,  by  thy  life 

Give  me  not  to  be  another's  wife, 

Tor  my  poor,  beloved  children's  sake, 

Lest  the  sight  of  them  my  heart  should  break." 

But  her  brother,  on  her  nuptials  bent, 
Yields  not  her  pure  purpose  his  consent ; 
Yet  of  prayers  the  good  wife  makes  no  end ; 
Brother,  at  the  least,  a  message  send 


234  TRANSLATIONS. 

r 

And  Imoski  Cadi  thus  entreat ; 
"  Thee,  the  widow  doth  in  friendship  greet, 
And  with  reverence  doth  she  earnest  pray, 
Hither  when  thy  bands  attend  thy  way, 
Tell  thy  train  an  ample  veil  to  bring, 
That  my  face  beneath  it  covering, 
Asan's  house  concealed  I  may  pass  by, 
Nor  on  my  dear  orphans  cast  mine  eye." 

Scarce  this  message  had  the  Cadi  read, 
When  he  calls  the  horsemen  whom  he  led, 
And  to  journey  towards  his  bride  prepares, 
And  the  veil  she  wished  for,  with  him  bears, 

Safely  to  the  princess'  house  they  come ; 
Safely  turn  to  gain  Imoski's  home ; 
But  when  Asan's  dwelling  they  drew  nigh, 
Lo  !  the  children  saw  the  train  pass  by, 
Saw  their  mother  from  above,  and  call ; 
"  Mother,  come  again  to  thine  own  hall ; 
With  thy  children  eat  the  evening  meal." — 
Then  did  Asan's  spouse  deep  anguish  feel, 
And  she  prays  the  prince  to  give  command, 
That  awhile  his  men  and  horses  stand, 
"  Till  to  my  dear  little  ones  I  bring 
Each  a  gift,  my  latest  offering." 


TRANSLATIONS.  235 

And  they  halted  at  the  children's  door ; 
Gifts  she  gave  these  poor  ones  from  her  store ; 
Gave  the  boys  fine  boots  all  worked  with  gold  ; 
Gave  the  maidens  robes,  rich  to  behold ;    «. 
To  the  babe,  that  in  the  cradle  lay, 
Gave  a  small  coat  for  a  future  day. 

This  saw  Asan  Aga  from  aside, 
"  Poor  dear  little  ones,"  he  mournful  cried, 
"  Come  to  me ;  your  mother's  breast  is  steel, 
"Firmly  locked  can  no  compassion  feel." 

Asan's  spouse  heard  that,  could  bear  no  more, 
Pale  and  trembling  sank  upon  the  floor, 
And  her  ransomed  soul  escaped  on  high, 
When  she  saw  her  children  from  her  fly. 


MY    GODDESS. 

GOETHE. 

Who  of  Heaven's  immortal  train 
Shall  the  highest  prize  obtain  ? 
Strife  I  would  with  all  give  o'er, 
But  there's  one  I'll  aye  adore, 
Ever  new,  and  ever  changing, 
Through  the  paths  of  marvel  ranging, 
Dearest  in  her  father's  eye, 
Jove's  own  darling,  Fantasy. 


236  TRANSLATIONS. 

For  to  her,  and  her  alone, 
All  his  secret  whims  are  known ; 
And  in  all  her  faults'  despite 
*  Is  the  maid  her  sire's  delight. 

Oft  with  aspect  mild  she  goes, 
Decked  with  lilies  and  the  rose, 
Walks  among  the  flowery  lands, 
Summer's  insect  swarm  commands, 
And  for  food  with  honeyed  lips 
Dew  drops  from  the  blossom  sips. 

Or  with  darker  mien  and  hair 
Streaming  loose  in  murky  air, 
With  the  storm  she  rushes  by, 
Whistling,  where  the  crags  are  high, 
And  with  hues  of  thousand  dyes 
Like  the  late  and  early  skies, 
Changes  and  is  changed  again, 
Fast  as  moons,  that  wax  and  wane. 

Him,  the  ancient  sire  we'll  praise, 
Who,  as  partner  of  our  days, 
Hath  to  mortal  man  allied 
Such  a  fair,  unfading  bride. 

For  to  us  alone  she's  given, 
And  is  bound  by  bonds  of  heaven, 


TRANSLATIONS.  237 

Still  to  be  our  faithful  bride, 
And  though  joy,  or  woe  betide, 
Ne'er  to  wander  from  our  side. 

Other  tribes,  that  have  their  birth 
From  the  fruitful,  teeming  earth, 
All,  through  narrow  life  remain 
In  dark  pleasures,  gloomy  pain, — 
Live  their  being's  narrow  round, 
To  the  passing  moment  bound, 
And  unconscious  roam  and  feed, 
Bent  beneath  the  yoke  of  need. 

But  to  us  with  kind  intent 
He  his  frolic  daughter  sent ; 
Nursed  with  fondest  tenderness, 
Welcome  her  with  love's  caress  ; 
And  take  heed,  that  none  but  she 
Mistress  of  the  mansion  be. 

And  of  Wisdom's  power  beware, 
Lest  the  old  stepmother  dare 
Rudely  harm  the  tender  fair. 

Yet  I  know  Jove's  elder  child, 
Graver,  and  serenely  mild, 
My  belov'd,  my  tranquil  friend  ; 
From  me  never  may  she  wend  ; 


238  TRANSLATIONS. 

She,  that  knows  with  ill  to  cope, 
And  to  action  urges, — Hope. 

THE    VIOLET. 

GOETHE. 

A  violet  blossom' d  on  the  green, 
With  lowly  stem,  and  bloom  unseen ; 
It  was  a  sweet,  wee  flower. 
A  shepherd  maiden  came  that  way 
With  lightsome  step  and  aspect  gay, 
Came  near,  came  near, 
Came  o'er  the  green  with  song. 

Ah !  thought  the  violet,  might  I  be 
The  fairest  flower  on  all  the  lea, 
Ah !  but  for  one  brief  hour  j 
And  might  be  plucked  by  that  dear  maid, 
And  gently  on  her  bosom  laid, 
Ah  but,  ah  but, 
A  few  dear  moments  long. 

Alas  !  the  maiden  as  she  passed, 
No  eye  upon  the  violet  cast ; 
She  crush'd  the  poor,  wee  flower ; 
It  sank,  and  dying  heaved  no  sigh, 
And  if  I  die,  at  least  I  die 
By  her,  by  her, 
Beneath  her  feet  I  die. 


TRANSLATIONS.  239 


HOPE. 

SCHILLER. 

Man  loves  of  a  better  existence  to  dream, 

That  may  gladden  a  coming  race ; 
He  sees  the  bright  goal,  and  its  glittering  beam 

He  follows  in  restless  chase. 

The  world  may  grow  old,  and  grow  youthful  again, 
But  hopes  in  the  future  unclouded  remain. 

'Tis  by  hope  that  man  into  life  is  led ; 

She  flutters  round  boyhood's  bloom  ; 
O'er  youth  all  her  brilliant  enchantments  are  spread  ; 

She  sleeps  not  with  age  in  the  tomb ; 
Though  life's  weary  labors  are  closed  in  the  grave, 
Still  o'er  it  the  branches  of  hope  greenly  wave. 

'Tis  no  vain  illusion  from  folly  that  came, 

To  natter  and  cheat  the  mind, 
That  man,  as  all  hearts  in  their  fervor  proclaim, 
-  Eor  a  happier  world  is  designed ; 
And  ne'er  will  the  voices  within  us  deceive 
The  reason  that  hopes,  or  the  souls  that  believe. 

SONG  OF  THE  CAPTIVE  COUNT. 

GOETHE. 
Count. 

A  flower,  that's  wondrous  fair  I  know, 
My  bosom  holds  it  dear, 


240  TRANSLATIONS. 

To  seek  that  flower  I  long  to  go, 
But  ain  imprison' d  here. 
'Tis  no  light  grief  oppresses  me ; 
For  in  the  days  my  steps  were  free, 
I  had  it  always  near. 

Far  round  the  tower  I  send  mine  eye, 
The  tower  so  steep  and  tall ; 
But  nowhere  can  the  flower  descry 
From  this  high  castle  wall ; 
And  him  who'll  brino-  me  mv  desire, 

o  «/ 

Or  be  he  knight,  or  be  he  squire, 
My  dearest  friend  I'll  call. 

Eose. 

My  blossoms  near  thee  I  disclose, 
And  hear  thy  wretched  plight ; 
Thou  meanest  me,  no  doubt,  the  rose, 
Thou  noble,  hapless  knight. 
A  lofty  mind  in  thee  is  seen, 
And  in  thy  bosom  reigns  the  queen 
Of  flowers,  as  is  her  right. 

Count. 

Thy  crimson  bud  I  duly  prize 
In  outer  robe  of  green ; 
For  this  thou'rt  dear  in  maiden's  eyes, 
As  gold  and  jewels'  sheen ; 


TRANSLATIONS.  241 

Thy  wreath  adorns  the  fairest  brow, 
And  yet  the  flower — it  is  not  thou, 
Whom  my  still  wishes  mean. 

Lily. 

The  little  rose  has  cause  for  pride, 
And  upwards  aye  will  soar ; 
Yet  am  I  held  by  many  a  bride 
The  rose's  wreath  before. 
And  beats  thy  bosom  faithfully, 
And  art  thou  true,  and  pure  as  I, 
Thou'lt  prize  the  lily  more. 

Count. 

I  call  myself  both  chaste  and  pure, 
And  free  from  passions  low ; 
And  yet  these  walls  my  limbs  immure 
In  loneliness  and  woe. 
Though  thou  dost  seem,  in  white  array'd, 
Like  many  a  fair  and  spotless  maid, 
One  dearer  thing  I  know. 

Pink. 

And  dearer  I,  the  pink,  must  be, 
And  me  thou  sure  dost  choose, 
Or  else  the  gardener  ne'er  for  me 
Such  watchful  care  would  use ; 
A  crowd  of  leaves  in  circling  bloom  ! 
And  mine  through  life  the  sweet  perfume, 

And  all  the  thousand  hues  ! 
16 


242  TRANSLATIONS. 

Count. 

The  pink  can  no  one  justly  slight, 
The  gard'ner's  favorite  flower ; 
He  sets  it  now  beneath  the  light, 
Now  shields  it  from  its  power. 
Yet  'tis  not  pomp,  which  o'er  the  rest 
In  splendor  shines,  can  make  me  blest 
It  is  a  still  small  flower. 

Violet. 

I  stand  concealed,  and  bending  low, 
And  do  not  love  to  speak ; 
Yet  will  I,  as  'tis  fitting  now, 
My  wonted  silence  break. 
For  if  'tis  I,  thou  gallant  man, 
Thy  heart  desires,  thine,  if  I  can, 
My  perfumes  all  I'll  make. 

Count. 

The  violet  I  esteem  indeed, 
So  modest  and  so  kind ; 
Its  fragrance  sweet,  yet  more  I  need, 
To  soothe  my  anguish'd  mind. 
To  you  the  secret  I  confess ; 
Here  'mid  this  rocky  dreariness, 
My  love  I  ne'er  shall  find. 

The  truest  wife  by  yonder  brook 
Will  roam  the  mournful  day, 
And  hither  cast  the  anxious  look, 


TRANSLATIONS.  243 

Long  as  immured  I  stay. 
Whene'er  she  breaks  a  small  blue  flower, 
And  says,  Forget  me  not !  the  power 
I  feel,  though  far  away. 

Yes,  e'en  though  far,  I  feel  its  might, 
For  true  love  joins  us  twain, 
And  therefore  'mid  the  dungeon's  night 
I  still  in  life  remain. 
And  sinks  my  heart  at  my  hard  lot, 
I  but  exclaim,  Forget  me  not ! 
And  straight  new  life  regain. 

JOY. 

GOETHE. 

Where  yonder  fountain  streams, 

What  fluttering  insect  gleams  ? 

She  changes  oft  her  hues, 

As  the  chameleons  use ; 

Now  white,  now  dark  she  seems ; 

Now  red,  now  blue, 

Now  blue,  now  green ; 

How  bright  must  she  appear, 

Could  I  behold  her  near ! 
The  Libellula  sings,  and  flits, 
In  circles  soars,  nor  rests  her  wing. — 
Hist !  on  the  willow  now  she  sits — • 
And  now  I've  caught  the  beauteous  thing ; 


244  TRANSLATIONS. 

And  gaze ; — but  ah !  what  meets  my  view  ? 
Her  brilliant  tints  a  touch  destroys, 
And  leaves  a  dark  and  cheerless  blue. 
This  is  thy  fate,  anatomist  of  thy  joys. 


THE   DIVINE 

GOETHB. 

Let  man,  for  highest  ends  designed, 
Be  just  in  action,  generous,  kind ; 
He  differs,  by  his  heavenly  birth, 
From  all  the*  tribes  that  roam  the  earth. 

Hail  to  the  spirits  !  the  unknown, 
Sublime,  revealed  by  Faith  alone ; 
Man,  from  his  own  example,  learns 
To  trust  in  what  no  eye  discerns. 

Unfeeling  nature,  ruthless,  cold, 

Moves  in  her  orbit,  as  of  old ; 

On  just  and  unjust  shines  the  sun, 

And  bright  to  all,  who  boldly  run 

Through  crimes,  and  them  who  have  no  stain, 

Glimmer  the  moon  and  all  her  train. 

Thunder  and  hail,  the  stream,  the  breeze, 
Rush  onward  in  their  course,  and  seize, 
Resistless,  as  they  haste  along, 
One  and  another — weak  and  strong. 


TRANSLATIONS.  245 

And  Fortune  blindly  gropes  her  way 
Amid  the  crowd,  nor  fears  to  lay 
Her  hand  upon  the  guileless  boy, 
With  curling  locks,  (or  to  destroy 
Or  bless,  she  recks  not,)  and  e'en  now 
She  smites  the  aged  sinner's  brow. 

That  mighty  law,  whose  iron  sway 
Is  boundless,  endless,  we  obey ; 
And,  following  nature's  changeless  will, 
Existence'  high  designs  fulfil. 

And  man  can  do,  and  man  hath  done 
The  impossible ;  'tis  he  alone 
Continuance  can  to  moments  lend, 
Compare  and  choose  the  nobler  end. 

'Tis  he  that  gives  the  wise  their  meed, 
He  may  avenge  the  evil  deed, 
Heal,  save,  and  to  good  ends  unite 
The  wayward  force  that  strays  from  right. 

And  we  revere  the  immortal  powers, 
As  if  their  spirits  were  like  ours ; 
And  they  but  widely  do,  what  here 
The  best  have  done,  in  narrower  sphere. 

Let  man  be  generous,  just,  and  kind, 
Unwearied  do,  with,  willing  mind, 


246  TRANSLATIONS. 

Whate'er  is  useful,  pure,  and  right ; 
Thus  will  he  leave  an  image  bright 
Of  beings,  whom  our  hearts  e'en  here, 
Forebode,  commune  with,  and  revere. 


THE    SALUTATION    OF    A    SPIRIT. 

[Goethe  illustrates  by  an  allegory  the  vanity  of  life. 
The  ancient  castle  stands  in  its  majesty ;  the  heroes, 
who  have  ruled  in  it  and  returned  to  it  in  victory,  are 
now  but  shadows;  the  last  survivor  of  the  house  is 
just  on  the  point  of  commencing  in  his  turn  the  unsuc 
cessful  pursuit  after  glory  and  happiness,  resolved  to 
run  his  course  fearlessly  and  in  the  spirit  of  trust. ~| 

High  on  the  castle's  ancient  walls 
The  warrior's  shade  appears ; 
Who  to  the  bark  that's  passing  calls, 
And  thus  its  passage  cheers. 

Behold !  these  sinews  once  were  strong ; 
This  heart  was  firm  and  bold ; 
'Mid  war  and  glory,  feast  and  song, 
My  earthly  years  were  told. 

Restless  through  half  of  life  I  ran, 

In  half  have  sought  for  ease ; 

What  then  ?   Thou  bark !  that  sails  with  man 

Haste,  haste  to  cleave  the  seas. 


STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

ECONOMY  OF  ATHENS. 

TIME  can  never  efface  the  interest  of  mankind  in  the 
nation  which  set  the  example  ef  intrusting  supreme 
power  to  the  people.  The  democracy  of  Athens,  with 
all  the  imperfections  in  every  part  of  its  public  service, 
with  the  abuses  attending  its  finances,  and  the  corrup 
tion  which  finally  turned  the  elective  franchise  into  a 
source  of  personal  revenue,  maintains  its  dignity  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world ;  for  there  the  elements  of  civil  liberty 
were  first  called  into  action. 

We  are  not  the  blind  admirers  of  the  Athenian 
commonwealth.  No  tongue  can  adequately  praise 
many  of  the  results  of  that  State ;  and  it  would  also 
be  difficult  fitly  to  display  the  deficiencies  in  its  organ 
ization,  and  the  gross  injustice  of  its  foreign  policy. 
Our  own  confederacy  does  not  more  surpass  the 
Grecian  in  the  extent  of  territory  over  which  its 


248  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

liberties  are  diffused,  than  in  the  excellence  of  the 
details  of  its  laws.  It  is  the  genius  of  our  institutions 
to  leave  every  thing  to  find  its  natural  level,  to  throw  no 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  free  progress  of  honest  in 
dustry,  to  melt  all  the  old  castes  of  society  into  one 
mass,  to  extend  the  rights  of  equal  citizenship  with 
perfect  liberality,  and  to  prevent  every  thing  like  a 
privileged  order  in  the  State.  The  Athenian  common 
wealth  was,  on  the  contraiy,  eminently  artificial  in  its 
character ;  it  conceded  with  a  chary  hand  the  advan 
tages  of  citizenship  to  the  strangers  resident  on  its  soil. 
The  elective  franchise  was,  mainly,  an  inherited  dig 
nity;  the  government  was  a  species  of  multitudinous 
aristocracy,  where  the  legislators  by  birthright,  though 
numerous,  were  limited,  and  political  power  was  vested 
in  the  hands  of  a  special  body  of  men,  who  consumed 
what  they  did  not  produce.  To  this  circumstance  are  to 
be  attributed  the  greatest  abuses  in  ancient  Attica. 
The  self-same  principles  in  human  nature,  which  in 
England  protect  the  hierarchy  and  the  nobility,  pro 
duced  in  Athens  public  festivals  at  the  common  cost, 
and  led  the  multitude  to  get  their  living  by  enacting 
laws  in  the  assembly,  or  interpreting  them  in  the  halls 
of  judicature. 

The  student,  who  attempts  to  look  minutely  into 
the  secrets  of  the  classic  world,  is  baffled  at  every  effort. 
The  accounts  are  almost  always  imperfect,  sometimes 
contradictory ;  and  the  inquirer  listens  to  an  echo,  that 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  249 

comes  but  faintly  from  centuries  so  remote.  Many  parts 
of  Grecian  history  are  preserved  in  the  most  graphic 
sketches,  yet  the  interior  of  a  Grecian  State  is  known 
only  in  its  leading  features. .  The  picture  is  exhibited 
in  a  dim  and  wavering  light ;  and  can  we  wonder,  that 
so  different  views  have  been  taken  of  it  ?  Is  it  strange, 
that  the  scholar  has  invested  Greece  with  the  most 
brilliant  colors  which  imagination  can  lend  ?  that  the 
glories  of  Marathon  and  Plateee  have  shed  a  lustre  over 
centuries,  when  patriotism  was  nearly  extinct?  The 
mind  has  been  so  filled  with  the  productions  of  Grecian 
art,  that  attention  has  been  diverted  from  ordinary 
concerns. 

The  admirable  work  of  the  learned  Boeckh  on  the 
Public  Economy  of  the  Athenians  illustrates  the  pecu 
liar  excellence  of  the  Germans  in  critical  researches.  It 
contains  not  a  word  of  vague  declamation  from  be 
ginning 'to  end.  No  topic  is  avoided  because  it  is 
difficult,  nor  neglected  because  it  is  minute.  Instead 
of  theories  we  have  a  series  of  facts,  selected  from  the 
whole  circle  of  classic  literature.  Almost  every  surviv 
ing  author  is  made  to  contribute  some  instruction  ;  the 
orators  most  of  all.  Nothing  seems  to  have  escaped  the 
patient  labors  of  this  distinguished  Hellenist .  Every 
passage,  from  which  an  inference  could  be  wrung,  is 
made  the  subject  of  his  consideration ;  and  in  this  way 
he  has  succeeded  in  illustrating  the  employments  of 
every-day  life  in  the  best  days  of  Athens.  His  investiga- 


250  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

tions  have  never  been  baffled  except  by  the  want  of  suffi 
cient  materials.  He  has  done  all  that  was  possible ; 
but  to  represent  life  as  it  was  in  the  happiest  age  of 
the  city  of  Minerva,  imagination  has  yet  to  fill  up  the 
outline;  and  the  jests  of  the  comic  writers,  and  the 
anecdotes  of  the  lovers  of  marvels,  though  fruitful 
sources  of  inference,  tempt  curiosity  without  fully 
satisfying  it. 

A  reference  to  Attica  recalls  all  our  classic  asso 
ciations,  and  concentres  them 

"  "Where  on  the  JEgean  shore  a  city  stands, 

Built  nobly  ;  pure  the  air,  and  light  the  soil ; 

Athens,"  the  eye  of  Greece,  mother  of  arts 

And  eloquence." 

It  would  seem  as  if  there  the  passion  for  gain  had 
been  lost  in  the  strife  for  glory ;  as  though  no  avarice 
but  that  of  praise  had  been  domesticated.  Who  asks, 
out  of  what  fund  the  Parthenon  was  built  ?  or  inquires 
into  the  cost  of  its  sculptures  ?  or  is  curious  to  know 
the  income  of  Socrates,  and  at  what  rates  of  interest 
Ins  little  patrimony  may  have  been  lent  ?  Who  wishes 
to  ascertain  how  much  would  have  constituted  an  inde 
pendent  fortune  in  the  days  of  Lycurgus,  the  Athenian 
financier?  who  demands  if  the  Athenians  practised 
free  trade  ? 

And  yet  in  Athens,  commerce  was  active ;  manu 
factures  were  not  neglected ;  houses  were  built  to  let ; 
there  were  no  joint-stock  companies,  yet  insurance  was 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  251 

not  unknown ;  there  were  no  banks  of  circulation,  yet 
money-lenders  abounded.  Following  the  guidance  of 
Boeckh,  we  intend  to  enter  into  some  homely  state 
ments  respecting  life  and  business  at  Athens,  such  as 
can  neither  kindle  the  imagination  nor  refine  the  taste, 
but  may  yet  throw  light  on  an  important  chapter  in 
the  history  of  the  human  race.  Contentment  with 
our  own  political  condition  will  certainly  be  increased 
by  a  near  contemplation  of  the  free  States  of  antiquity. 

THE    SUPPLY    OF    GOLD    AND    SILVER. 

The  ancients  did  not  make  a  separate  science  of 
political  economy.  Their  treatises  upon  politics  touch 
upon  it  but  incidentally ;  and  therefore  information  on 
the  condition  of  their  finances  must  be  gathered  piece 
meal,  and  by  inductions. 

The  resources  of  Athens  in  its  earlier  days  can 
scarcely  merit  attention  ;  and  after  the  loss  of  its  inde 
pendence,  the  inquiry  would  be  less  productive  of 
interest  or  instruction.  Our  discussion  will  chiefly 
have  reference  to  the  time  following  the  Persian  wars, 
and  before  the  aggrandizement  of  Alexander. 

In  the  early  period  of  Grecian  history,  the  quantity 
of  the  precious  metals  increased  very  slowly.  But 
between  the  age  of  Solon  and  Demosthenes,  such  a 
change  was  wrought  by  the  nearer  connection  with 
the  East,  that  prices  were  affected  in  the  proportion  of 


252  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

one  to  five ;  a  change  rapid  beyond  any  thing  «i 
modern  history.  In  the  days  of  Croesus  gold  could 
hardly  be  purchased  any  where  in  Hellas.  It  was 
more  abundant  in  Africa  and  especially  in  Asia,  where 
the  sands  of  Colchis,  and  the  streams  of  Pactolus 
glittered  with  treasure.  The  fable  surrounded  Midas 
with  nothing  else ;  and  history  keeps  the  record  of  the 
amiable  liberality  as  well  as  the  hoarded  treasures,  and 
pious  offerings  of  Croesus  ?  The  master  of  Celaense,  a 
town  near  the  sources  of  the  Maeander,  himself  pos 
sessed  about  fifteen  millions  of  dollars  in  gold.  The 
booty  of  Cyrus  in  Asia  Minor  was  incalculably  great. 
The  revenues  of  Darius,  after  defraying  all  the  expenses 
of  the  provinces  and  their  satraps,  amounted  annually 
to  $12,191,400.  India  was  ever  famous  for  its  wealth 
in  valuable  ores ;  and  the  tale  of  busy  ants,  that  dug 
for  gold,  is  an  allegory  on  the  productiveness  of  her 
mines. 

The  circulating  medium  did  not  increase  in  propor 
tion  with  the  quantity  of  bullion.  The  temples  and 
the  public  coffers  were  provided  by  a  prudent  super 
stition  or  a  grasping  despotism  with  immense  treasures 
in  the  precious  metals,  either  in  massive  bars,  or 
formed  into  works  of  art.  The  coinage  was  limited 
by  the  seeming  wants  of  commerce.  Even  in  Greece 
immense  sums  lay  in  deposit.  The  citadel  of  Athens 
had  a  strong  box  with  87,300  dollars  in  cash,  besides 
many  vessels  of  silver  and  gold.  The  treasures  of 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  253 

Delphi  are  notorious.  The  gifts  of  Croesus  alone 
amounted  to  not  less  than  $3,600,000.  The  wealth 
of  the  consecrated  national  isle  increased  with  the  na 
tional  victories.  The  Persian  king  entered  on  the 
invasion  of  Greece  wTith  one  thousand  two  hundred 
camels  laden  with  money  and  precious  things ;  all  of 
which  became  the  prey  of  the  victors.  When  the 
Phocians,  of  a  later  age,  laid  sacrilegious  hands  on  the 
treasures  of  Delphi,  they  coined  from  them  about 
$9,000,000  in  value. 

The  currency  of  Greece  received  further  additions 
from  the  system  of  .bribery  practised  by  Philip ;  but 
after  the  conquest  of  Asia  by  Alexander,  coin  flowed 
in  upon  Europe  in  still  broader  channels.  The  trea 
sures  which  he  found  collected  in  the  Persian  empire 
were  very  considerable.  The  amount  taken  at  Susa 
and  Persis  was  $45,000,000,  at  Pasargada  $5,400,000, 
and  at  Persepolis  $108,000,000.  The  sum  amassed 
at  Ecbatana,  is  said  by  Strabo,  no  contemptible  au 
thority,  to  have  amounted  to  $162,000,000. 

Alexander's  liberality  corresponded  with  this  im 
mense  wealth.  The  expenses  of  his  table  were  $1,500 
daily  ;  and  he  paid  the  debts  of  his  soldiers,  amounting 
to  about  $8,883,000.  The  funeral  ceremonies  of 
Hephaestion  are  said  to  have  cost  $10,800,000.  The 
grateful,  monarch  deemed  $720,000  no  unreasonable 
appropriation  to  further  the  investigations  of  Aristotle 
in  Natural  History ;  and  it  was  an  offer  of  $900,000 


254  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

which  Phocion  refused.  His  yearly  revenue  from  Asia 
was  $27,000,000 ;  and  he  left  a  treasure  of  no  more 
than  $45,000,000. 

His  satraps  must  have  been  very  rich.  Harpalus, 
who  fled  to  Athens,  was  estimated  to  have  amassed 
$4,500,000,  though  he  declared  in  Greece,  that  he  had 
but  $674,000. 

The  wealth  of  the  successors  of  Alexander  was 
equally  extraordinary.  A  single  festival  of  the  Ptol 
emies  cost  $2,000,000 ;  and,  at  the  lowest  computa 
tion,  the  treasure  left  by  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  amount 
ed  to  the  enormous  sum  of  $166,000,000.  Some 
estimate  it  four  tunes  as  high.  It  is  difficult  to  believe 
the  account,  but  not  impossible.  Egypt  was  at  that 
time  the  richest  country  in  the  world ;  and  had  almost 
a  monopoly  of  the  commerce  with  the  East.  Nor  is  it 
half  so  strange,  as  that  the  debt  of  a  modern  nation 
should  have  grown  to  be  four  thousand  millions  of 
dollars.  The  revenue  from  the  customs  in  Egypt  was 
$13,000,000  annually.  The  annual  taxes  in  Ccelo- 
Syria,  Phenicia,  Judea,  and  Samaria,  were  farmed  out 
for  more  than  $14,000,000. 

The  precious  metals  existed  in  very  great  abun 
dance  in  the  Levant,  but  the  custom  of  collecting  great 
masses  of  these  treasures,  tended  to  prevent  the  pro 
portionate  increase  of  the  circulating  medium.  So 
many  temples,  so  many  cities,  so  many  provincial 
satraps,  so  many  despotic  princes  withdrew  the  com 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  255 

from  circulation  to  reserve  it  in  deposits,  that  prices 
were  not  reduced  in  the  degree  which  we  might  -have 
inferred  from  the  mention  of  such  enormous  sums. 
Great  quantities  also  existed  in  the  shape  of  works  of 
art ;  and  the  shrines  of  many  a  Grecian  Deity  were 
adorned  with  images  and  costly  vessels  wrought  out  of 
"  barbaric  gold." 

The  amount  of  the  coinage  of  Athens  has  been 
variously  estimated.  The  basis  of  calculation  is  the 
weight  of  such  pieces  of  money  as  have  been  preserved. 
We  find  that  as  near  an  approximation  as  we  can 
make,  gives  fifteen  cents  for  the  drachma,  and  of  course 
for  the  mina  $15,  and  $900  for  the  talent.  This  is  the 
basis  which  we  follow.  It  is  a  little  more  than  the  one 
usually  given  in  English  books ;  yet  a  little  below  the 
calculations  of  Barthelemy.  An  obolus  is  of  course 
taken  to  be  two  cents  and  a  half. 

The  Greeks  reckoned  according  to  drachmas;  as 
the  French  'according  to  francs.  The  usual  idea  has 
been,  as  to  the  difference  between  ancient  and  modern 
prices,  that  one  dollar  was  worth  in  the  best  days  of 
Athens  what  ten  dollars  are  now.  Boeckh  makes  the 
difference  no  greater  than  as  one  to  three.  We  think 
that  he  has  not  reduced  it  unreasonably.  If  prices  at 
modern  Athens  or  at  Naples  are  compared  with  the 
statement  which  we  shall  presently  give,  the  view  of 
the  distinguished  Hellenist  will  probably  be  confirmed. 

The  Athenian  coinage,  to  which  we  have  alluded, 


256  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

was  the  one  established  by  Solon.  Before  his  time  the 
drachma  was  worth  more.  Out  of  seventy-two  and  a 
half  drachmas  of  the  old  coin,  he  made  one  hundred. 
In  this  change,  creditors  as  well  as  debtors  acquiesced. 

The  value  of  gold,  as  compared  with  silver,  varied 
with  times  and  places.  It  was  usually  considered  to  be 
as  ten  to  one.  In  the  time  of  Plato,  it  was  as  twelve  to 
one ;  Herodotus  says  as  thirteen  to  one.  In  the  Bospho- 
rus,  in  the  age  of  Demosthenes,  it  was  as  fourteen  to  one. 
Among  the  Romans,  in  the  year  564  of  Rome,  that  is, 
190  years  before  Christ,  one  third  of  a  sum  of  money 
paid  by  the  JEtolians  was  taken  in  gold,  at  the  rate  of 
one  for  ten,  to  the  grievance  of  the  ^Etolians.  Under 
Caesar,  the  gold  from  Gaul  reduced  the  rate  so  that  it 
became  as  one  to  eight  and  thirteen-fourteenths  ;  while 
in  the  fifth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  it  was  as  high 
as  one  to  eighteen. 

The  price  of  gold  advanced  in  Greece  with  the 
progress  of  business.  It  was  much  used  in  making 
remittances.  Soldiers  were  paid  in  it ;  and  Sparta 
hoarded  it  in  vast  sums,  never  to  be  expended  but  for 
warlike  purposes. 

Gold  coin  was  early  in  use.  Croesus  corned  the 
golden  stater.  Darius,  the  son  of  Hystaspis,  coined 
darics  of  pure  gold,  equal  in  weight  to  thirty  cents  in 
silver,  and  current  for  three  dollars.  Five  therefore 
made  a  mina ;  three  hundred  a  talent.  The  golden 
darics  were  favorite  coins  in  Hellas. 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  257 

Some  of  the  Grecian  States  had  a  debased  coinage 
for  domestic  circulation.  Even  the  Athenians  once  en 
gaged  in  that  dishonest  process,  but  it  was  soon  put 
down  by  public  opinion ;  and  the  coin  of  Athens  main 
tained  in  commerce  a  high  character  for  intrinsic  value. 


BUSINESS    IN    ATHENS. 

The  nearest  approximation  we  have  been  able  to 
make  to  the  contents  of  Attica,  would  allow  to  that 
country,  including  Salamis  and  Helena,  no  more  than 
from  640  to  656  square  geographical  miles.  The  an 
cients  called  Athens  the  most  populous  city  of  Greece. 
Its  inhabitants  were  composed  of  three  separate 
classes;  citizens,  resident  strangers,  and  slaves.  Of 
the  former,  the  average  number  was  20,000.  Allowing 
the  proportion  of  4^  to  include  the  women  and  minors, 
we  shall  have  90,000  as  the  number  of  the  free  native 
inhabitants  of  Attica.  A  similar  mode  of  calculation 
gives  45,000  for  the  number  of  free  strangers,  whom 
business  or  pleasure  had  domiciliated.  The  census 
taken  by  Demetrius  gives  400,000  slaves.  If  we 
consider  this  estimate  as  excessive,  the  number  of  slaves 
may  still  have  been  365,000.  Thus  90,000  citizens, 
45,000  sojourners,  and  365,000  slaves,  in  all  500,000 
souls,  may  have  occupied  the  soil  of  Attica. 

The  free  population  was  to  the  slave  about  as  one 
to  four.  The  surprising  disproportion  between  the 
17 


258  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

free  and  the  slave  population  is  corroborated  by 
circumstantial  as  well  as  direct  evidence.  Every 
body  was  served  by  slaves;  even  the  poorer  citizen 
owned  some  miserable  dru'dge.  The  manufactories 
were  supplied  by  them;  the  rich  had  throngs  of 
attendants ;  some  philosophers  were  not  content  with 
less  than  ten.  The  father  of  Demosthenes  employed 
more  than  fifty  in  his  business,  beside  the  female 
slaves  of  his  household.  Plato  says,  that  rich  men 
often  had  fifty  slaves. 

This  immense  number  of  slaves  left  the  free  citi 
zens  of  Attica  no  occupation  but  politics.  They  were 
literally  crowded  out  of  every  other  pursuit.  Thus  the 
Athenians  lived  either  on  the  revenues  derived  from 
their  possessions,  or  by  serving  in  the  courts  and 
popular  assemblies,  or  by  pursuing  some  of  those 
nobler  arts,  which  genius  exercised,  and  the  popular 
pride  cultivated  and  gratified.- 

Athens  had  10,000  houses.  Fourteen  souls  to  a 
house  would  seem  too  large  an  allowance;  and  yet 
many  of  the  houses  were  built  on  purpose  to  be  occu 
pied  by  several  families.  The  mining  district  was  also 
very  populous.  The  harbor  of  the  Pirseeus  was  likewise 
crowded  with  tenements.  Allow  then  for  the  mining 
district  20,000,  for  the  city  140,000,  for  the  harbor 
40,000,  and  we  shall  have  left  for  the  country  300,000 
souls ;  or  about  500  to  the  square  geographical  mile. 
The  number  seems  incredibly  large;  it  is  still  more 


ECONOMY   OF   ATHENS.  259 

difficult  to  disbelieve  the  estimate.  We  must  remem 
ber,  that  Attica  was  the  head  of  a  number  of  States, 
the  mistress  of  the  sea,  and  the  territory  in  which 
wealth,  manufactures  and  business  were  concentrated. 

Its  soil  was  not  unproductive.  The  mild  climate 
ripened  all  excellent  fruits ;  the  arts  of  agriculture 
were  greatly  advanced ;  the  oil  of  Attica  is  famous  even 
to  this  day ;  and  its  classic  hills,  of  which  every  peak 
has  been  the  haunt  of  a  god,  or  the  theme  of  a  poet, 
are  still  crowned  with  rows  of  olives ; 

"  And  still  his  honeyed  wealth  Hymettus  yields." 
Attica  did  not  abound  in  horses.  At  the  battle  of 
Marathon  there  was  no  cavalry.  The  fisheries  were 
good ;  the  mines  of  silver  productive ;  the  quarries  of 
marble,  which  still  gleam  in  the  glare  of  the  bright 
day,  even  then  constituted  an  important  article  of 
export. 

The  mechanic  arts  were  originally  in  low  repute'. 
None  of  the  ancient  nobility  were  willing  to  engage  in 
them ;  but  the  mechanics  afterwards  gained  great 
power  in  the  commonwealth,  and  Cleon  the  tanner 
was  among  the  favored  successors  of  Pericles.  Yet 
manufactures  were  liberally  encouraged.  Freedom  of 
competition  was  permitted ;  strangers  thronged  to 
Attica  to  engage  in  business,  and  their  industry  fur 
nished  a  large  amount  of  exports.  Prices  were  kept 
up  by  the  great  foreign  demand,  and  the  high  rates 
of  interest  exacted  by  the  capitalist  rendered  large 


260  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

profits  necessary.  Great  quantities  of  arms,  various 
kinds  of  cutlery,  and  cloths  were  exported.  « 

Aitica  was  thus  enabled  to  procure  from  abroad 
the  products  which  her  own  soil  could  not  furnish  in 
sufficient  abundance.  No  law  prohibited  the  exporta 
tion  of  specie.  On  the  contrary,  the  purity  of  the 
Attic  coinage  often  made  its  export  advantageous ; 
the  want  of  bills  of  exchange  frequently  rendered  it 
necessary.  In  the  Pirseeus,  as  in  the  harbor  of  our  own 
splendid  commercial  emporium,  the  produce  of  every 
clime  was  to  be  found.  The  dominion  of  the  sea,  says 
Xenophon,  secured  to  the  Athenians  the  sweets  of  the 
world.  Nor  would  the  Athenian  ships  in  point  of  size 
have  suffered  from  a  comparison  with  the  New  York 
packets.  Demosthenes  speaks  of  one,  which  carried 
three  hundred  men,  besides  its  cargo,  slaves,  and  com 
plement  of  sailors. 

That  honorable  employment,  which  has  such  an 
absorbing  charm  to  the  lovers  of  intelligence, — that 
trade,  which  is  emphatically  THE  TRADE,  did  not 
nourish  of  yore  in  the  city  of  Minerva.  There  was 
indeed  a  book-maker  in  Athens ;  and  books  were  ex 
ported  even  across  the  Euxine ;  but  they  were  chiefly 
blank  books ;  the  day  of  glory  did  not  dawn  on  the 
trade  till  the  reign  of  Augustus.  The  sale  of  manu 
scripts  for  profit  was  so  uncommon  in  the  time  of 
Plato,  that  Hermodoras  of  Sicily,  the  oldest  bookseller 
of  whom  we  read,  and  who  sold  the  writings  of  his 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  261 

illustrious  contemporary,  came  to  be  a  proverb.  In  the 
youth  of  Zeno,  however,  there  were  some  incipient 
establishments  for  vending  books  in  Athens. 

The  credit  system,  so  important  in  modern  com 
merce,  was  but  partially  understood  by  the  ancients. 
Hence  there  were  none  of  those  commotions  and  pres 
sures  in  the  money-market,  to  which  our  cities  are  ex 
posed.  The  indorser  was  bound  for  a  year.  The  laws 
for  collecting  debts  were  very  rigid ;  and  the  rights  of 
capitalists  were  guarded  with  great  strictness.  The 
rich  were  taxed,  and  taxed  heavily;  but  they  were 
well  protected.  One  class  of  frauds  on  the  creditor 
was  punished  with  death.  When  money  was  lent,  and 
the  proceeds  of  a  voyage  pledged  as  collateral  security, 
if  the  debtor  secretly  disposed  of  them  to  the  injury 
of  his  creditor,  life  was  forfeited. 

Commerce  was  suspended,  or  was  at  least  inactive 
in  the  winter  season.  That,  therefore,  was  the  time  for 
the  sessions  of  the  court  which  had  maritime  jurisdic 
tion.  If  a  cause  was  not  brought  to  an  issue,  it  lay 
over  to  the  next  winter.  But  at  a  later  time,  the  law- 
assigned  a  month  as  the  period  within  which  an  action 
was  required  to  be  decided. 

Commercial  agents  or  consuls  were  not  unknown. 
The  Athenians  hardly  had  a  systematized  tariff;  or 
rather,  then1  position  was  such  as  to  render  the  adop 
tion  of  a  protecting  system  wholly  useless.  The  chief 
commercial  regulations  related  to  the  importation  of 


262  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

corn ;  of  which  great  supplies  were  annually  required 
from  abroad.  There  also  occurred  cases,  where  the 
sale  of  a  monopoly  was  made  an  expedient  for  obtain 
ing  revenue.  But  if  Athens  had  no  prohibitory  duties, 
because  the  first  manufacturing  district  could  defy 
competition,  it  was  not  so  with  her  neighbors.  ^Egina 
and  Argos  both  became  jealous  of  the  wealth  of  Athens, 
and  the  introduction  of  Attic  manufactures  was  pro 
hibited  by  then-  laws. 

The  dominion  of  the  sea  was  converted  by  Athens 
into  a  despotism.  She  understood,  no  less  than 
modern  England,  the  dismal  doctrines  of  bloejlyide ; 
and  submission  was  almost  the  only  security  for  a 
commercial  city,  ^f  a  ship  hoisted  an  independent 
flag,  it  was  sure  to  be  pillaged  by  the  Athenian 
corsairs.  Her  maritime  courts  were  as  ready  as  ever 
were  those  of  the  English  to  sustain  the  claim  of  the 
privateer ;  and  it  was  equally  difficult  to  get  a  decree 
reversed,  after  a  ship  had  been  once  condemned. 

In  the  domestic  market,  the  retail-trade  was  open 
to  all  citizens  ;  foreigners  might  also  come  into  compe 
tition;  though  a  tax,  or  caution-money,  was  exacted 
of  them. 

The  gains  of  mercantile  operations  were  far  greater 
than  at  present.  Yet  it  was  unusual  for  a  ship  to 
return  with  its  capital  doubled ;  a  result  not  at  all  un 
common  in  the  early  stages  of  oiir  own  republic.  A 
Samian  ship,  which  made  for  its  owners  a  gain  of 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  263 

L<,000  in  one  voyage,  was  considered  by  Herodotus 
something  so  extraordinary,  that  he  has  embalmed  the 
memory  of  it. 

PRICES. 

The  fertility  of  the  southern  regions  and  the  diffi 
culty  attending  the  exports  to  remote  nations,  re 
duced  the  price  of  many  commodities  of  easy  produc 
tion.  Athens  was  a  city,  in  which  living  was  regarded 
as  expensive.  We  shall  give  some  data  in  confir 
mation  of  this  opinion.  But  the  low  cost  of  some 
articles,  as  compared  with  present  prices,  is  often 
to  be  attributed  to  a  change  in  the  state  of  the 
markets,  as  much  as  to  a  change  in  the  value  of 
money. 

The  nearest  possible  approximation  gives  thirty 
dollars  as  the  average  price  of  an  acre  of  good  land 
in  Attica.  In  this  computation,  we  allow  four  pletlira 
to  the  acre ;  which  is  nearly  exact.  Yet  landed  estates 
were  small  and  were  greatly  subdivided.  Alcibiades 
inherited  no  more  than  seventy  acres ;  and  Phsenippus, 
who  owned  three  hundred  and  sixty,  was  esteemed  an 
immense  landholder. 

In  consequence  of  the  great  extent  of  Athens,  all 
the  land  was  not  occupied.  The  houses  w^ere  un 
sightly  ;  the  streets  narrow  and  crooked ;  and  the 
Pirseeus  was  the  only  regularly  built  part  of  the  city. 


264  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

The  upper  stories  often  overhung  the  street ;  and  stair 
cases  were  generally  on  the  outside.  Private  houses 
were  often  built  of  unburnt  brick.  The  whole  expense 
of  building  was  inconsiderable.  The  prices  of  houses 
varied  from  forty-five  dollars  to  one  thousand  eight 
hundred,  according  to  their  size,  situation,  and  quality. 
The  latter  price  was  unusually  high ;  half  the  sum 
would  purchase  a  very  decant  dwelling-house. 

An  able-bodied  slave,  not  possessed  of  peculiar 
skill,  was  worth  not  far  from  twenty  dollars.  The 
price  varied,  according  to  his  health  and  age,  from 
seven  to  thirty  dollars.  This  proves  how  absurd,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  immorality,  is  the  use  of  slave-labor  in  a 
temperate  clime.  The  labor  of  the  slave  would,  as  the 
price  proves,  yield  but  little  beyond  his  own  support. 
Yet  a  good  mephanic  was  worth  much  more.  The 
better  slaves,  employed  by  the  father  of  Demosthenes 
in  the  manufacture  of  swords,  were  worth  on  an 
average  about  seventy-five  dollars ;  and  that  sum  was 
no  unusual  price  for  a  skilful  workman.  The  divi 
dends  on  the  establishment  of  Demosthenes  amounted 
to  a  little  less  than  sixteen  per  cent,  annually;  but 
another  branch  of  his  business  yielded  him  an  annual 
profit  of  thirty  per  cent. 

A  good  horse  was  worth  about  forty-five  dollars ; 
but  a  handsome  saddle,  or  carriage  horse,  would  very 
readily  command  one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars.  Yet 
who  can  set  a  limit  to  luxury  in  horses  ?  It  may  be 


ECONOMY   OF   ATHENS.  265 

said  of  human  nature,  as  of  youth,  gaudet  equis. 
Bucephalus  brought  nearly  twelve  thousand  dollars. 
The  price  of  a  pair  of  mules  was  from  eighty  to  a 
hundred  and  twenty  dollars.  In  the  good  days  of 
Solon,  before  the  precious  metals  were  plenty,  the  pious 
devotee  could  purchase  an  ox  for  the  altar  with  sev 
enty-five  cents.  But  when  Athens  had  grown  rich, 
the  best  beeves  sold  for  seven  and  a  half  or  even  eleven 
and  a  half  dollars.  A  hecatomb  cost,  in  one  instance, 
seven  hundred  and  sixty-seven  dollars ;  in  another, 
eleven  thousand  and  fifty-eight  dollars.  It  is  men 
tioned  as  one  of  the  expensive  fooleries  of  Alci- 
biades,  that  he  gave  one  thousand  and  fifty  dollars  for 
a  dog. 

The  corn  laws  involve  a  great  question  in  the 
politics  of  Athens.  Attica  wras  by  no  means  able  to 
supply  its  own  demands  for  domestic  consumption. 
The  residue  was  received  partly  from  the  Thracian 
Chersonesus,  partly  from  Pontus.  Hence  we  see  how 
important  was  the  possession  of  Byzantium  to  Athens. 
There  is  reason  to  believe,  that  the  annual  importation 
of  bread-stuffs  equalled  one  and  a  half  million  of 
bushels.  No  corn  was  allowed  to  be  exported;  no 
ship  laden  with  it  could  touch  at  an  Attic  port,  with 
out  selling  at  least  two  thirds  of  its  cargo.  The  laws 
threw  hindrances  in  the  way  of  buying  up  all  that  was 
in  the  market ;  the  quantity  which  might  be  purchased 
at  once  was  limited,  and  the  retailer  was  restricted  to  a 


266  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

profit  of  less  than  two  cents  on  a  bushel.  All  attempts 
to  forestall  and  monopolize  were  prohibited,  under  the 
penalty  of  death.  Yet  the  oppression  of  the  corn 
merchants  was  very  great,  in  spite  of  the  severity 
of  the  laws,  or  perhaps  in  consequence  of  them. 

As  to  prices,  under  Solon  a  bushel  of  wheat  was 
worth  ten  cents ;  from  390  to  380  years  before  Christ, 
about  thirty  cents ;  in  the  age  of  Demosthenes,  half  a 
dollar  was  esteemed  a  moderate  demand. 

The  bakers  of  Athens  carried  their  art  to  a  high 
degree  of  perfection ;  but  we  have  no  direct  criterion 
to  decide  how  much  the  good  housekeepers  of  classic 
name  were  obliged  to  pay  for  their  loaves.  The  price 
of  corn  furnishes  some  means  of  judging ;  the  dispro 
portion,  however,  between  the  price  of  wheat  and  of 
bread  must  have  been  greater  than  at  present,  in  con 
sequence  of  the  high  rates  of  interest. 

The  melretres  of  wine  held  about  thirty-five  quarts, 
or  (to  state  its  contents  exactly)  35  1452-10,000 
quarts.  The  low  price  of  wine  in  the  ancient  world  is 
astonishing.  That  produced  in  Attica,  sold  for  less  than 
two  cents  a  quart ;  and  very  tolerable  wine  was  often 
sold  for  half  that  sum.  Tin's  proves,  also,  that  in  the 
main  the  Athenians  were  not  an  intemperate  race.  The 
Chian  wine  was  worth  forty-five  cents  a  quart.  In 
upper  Italy  when  a  bushel  of  wheat  brought  ten  cents, 
a  gallon  of  wine  cost  less  than  one. 

Sweet  oil  was  worth  a  little  more  than  sixty  cents 


•ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  267 

a  gallon.  Salt  was  easily  imported  into  Athens ;  it 
was  also  manufactured.  Of  its  price  nothing  is 
known.  Timber  for  building  was  imported ;  but  coals 
and  firewood  were  sent  into  the  city  on  asses.  Thirty 
cents  were  asked  for  the  quantity  which  an  ass  would 
carry. 

The  style  of  living  was  as  unequal  as  were  the 
degrees  of  wealth  and  extravagance.  Alexander's 
table  cost  for  himself  and  his  suite  $1,500  daily, 
and  the  miser  in  Theophrastus  allowed  his  wife  but 
nine  mills.  The  term  opson  embraced  every  thing  but 
bread;  and  seven  or  eight  cents  were  considered  a 
small  provision  for  it.  Yet  a  slave  in  Terence  buys  a 
meal  for  his  old  master  for  two  and  a  half  cents ;  and 
the  lawyer  Lysias  complains  of  the  guardian,  who 
charged  for  the  opson  of  two  boys  and  a  little  girl,  the 
extravagant  sum  of  a  New  York  shilling.  The  Athe 
nians  were  very  fond  of  fish ;  and  a  great  deal  of  salt- 
fish  was  imported  from  Pontus  and  even  from  Cadiz. 

The  ancient  world  was  ruled  by  the  same  human  na 
ture  as  the  modern.  The  Wellington  boots  of  modern 
day  remind  us  of  the  Alcibiades  boots,  and  the  Iphi- 
crates  shoes  of  antiquity.  A  good  cloak  might  cost  one 
dollar  and  eighty  cents  ;  and  a  dandy  was  willing  to 
give  three  dollars  for  a  coat ;  evidently,  however,  from  a 
fashionable  tailor.  A  good  pair  of  woman's  shoes  cost 
no  more  than  thirty  cents.  A  very  showy  pair  of 
men's  shoes  may  have  cost  one  dollar  and  twenty  cents 


268  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

Ointments  were  exceedingly  expensive.  The  more 
precious  kinds  brought  from  fifty  dollars  to  one  hun 
dred  for  the  gill. 

There  are  no  sufficient  data  on  which  to  estimate 
the  cost  of  a  ship.  As  to  productiveness,  we  find  that 
the  corn  ship,  Isis,  of  immense  burden,  yielded  annu 
ally  for  freight,  $10,800. 

The  amount  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  a 
family,  is  not  easily  established.  Socrates  is  supposed 
to  have  lived  upon  an  income  of  seventy-five  dollars ; 
but  then,  his  manner  of  living  was  inferior  to  that  of 
the  slaves.  His  coat  was  old  and  shabby,  and  he  wore 
the  same  garment  both  winter  and  summer ;  he  went 
barefoot ;  his  chief  food  was  bread  and  water ;  and  as 
he  engaged  in  no  kind  of  business  to  mend  his  estate 
or  increase  his  income,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  his  wife 
scolded  often.  Demosthenes,  his  sister,  and  their 
mother,  paid  for  their  board  $105  for  a  year;  and 
provided  the  house  into  the  bargain.  A  young  man, 
Mantitheus,  could  be  educated  and  supported  for  $108 
annually.  The  accounts  furnish  no  means  of  arriving 
at  a  definite  conclusion.  Who  would  limit  at  the  pres 
ent  day  the  sum  with  which  it  is  possible  to  preserve 
life? 

Death  brought  heavy  expenses  in  its  train.  The 
income  of  years  was  lavished  upon  the  expenses  of  a 
funeral ;  which  amounted  to  a  sum  varying  from  $45 
to  $1800. 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  269 

The  working  classes  received  but  moderate  compen 
sation.  The  great  number  of  slaves,  who  came  into 
competition  for  labor,  reduced  the  price  exceedingly. 
Mere  manual  labor  could  be  procured  for  ten  cents  a 
day ;  that  seems  to  have  been  the  lowest  rate,  and  is 
not  lower  than  the  present  price  of  labor  in  many  parts 
of  Europe. 

The  fares  in  travelling  were  verysmall.  From  ^Egina 
to  the  Piraeeus,  a  distance  of  sixteen  miles,  the  fare  was 
but  five  cents.  Prom  Egypt  to  Pontus,  not  more  than 
thirty  cents.  This  price  is  inexplicably  low.  A  soldier 
in  the  infantry  received  for  pay  and  rations  for  himself 
and  attendant,  thirty  cents  daily;  the  officers  twice, 
and  the  generals  only  four  times  as  much.  Here  is  a 
great  contrast  with  modern  usage. 

Public  physicians  were  sometimes  appointed.  Hip 
pocrates  ist  said  to  have  received  a  stipend  from  Athens, 
and  to  have  been  physician  to  the  State.  Democedes 
in  the  60th  Olympiad,  about  538  years  before  Christ, 
received  at  ^Egina  $900.  He  was  invited  to  Athens 
with  a  salary  of  $1,500 ;  but  Poly  crates  of  Sarnos  se 
cured  him  for  $1,800.  In  those  days  money  was  still 
scarce. 

The  stars  at  the  theatres  received  enormous  com 
pensation.  The  highest  sum  mentioned,  is  $900  for 
two  days ;  which  would  nearly  satisfy  our  most  popu 
lar  players. 

Protagoras,  the  Abderite,  began  teaching  for  mo- 


270  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

• 

ney.  He  demanded  for  a  complete  course,  $1,500. 
Gorgias  required  as  much,  yet  died  poor.  Some,  find 
ing  the  charges  high,  used  to  cheapen  the  wisdom  of 
the  philosopher;  just  as  now,  copyrights  are  a  sub 
ject  of  discussion.  But  competition  reduced  prices. 
Evenus  asked  only  $150,  in  the  age  of  Socrates  ;  and 
at  the  same  price,  Isocrates  taught  the  whole  art 
of  rhetoric.  Prodicus  used  to  sell  tickets  for  separate 
lectures. 

One  per  cent,  a  month,  was  the  usual  rate  of  inter 
est  ;  yet  there  was  no  legal  restriction  of  usury.  The 
trade  in  money,  like  every  thing  else,  was  left  wholly 
free,  and  the  rates  varied  from  ten  to  thirty-six  per 
cent.  In  cases  of  bottomry,  this  last  rate  was  the 
highest.  It  is  plain,  that  insurance  was  in  such  cases 
paid  for,  not  less  than  the  use  of  capital.  The  high 
rates  may  be  ascribed  to  the  insecurity  of  the  times  ; 
imperfect  legislation ;  the  difficulty  of  pursuing  a  claim 
in  a  foreign  state ;  and  the  faulty  administration  of 
justice. 

The  brokers  made  their  gain  partly  by  exchanging 
coin  at  a  premium,  but  far  more  by  receiving  deposits 
and  lending  them  again  at  a  higher  rate  than  they 
themselves  agreed  to  pay.  Some  of  them  enjoyed  the 
best  credit,  and  received  money  and  notes  on  deposit. 
Pasion,  at  once  a  banker  and  a  broker,  used  to  make  a 
clear  profit  of  $1,500  annually.  Bankruptcies  among 
the  brokers,  were  not  unknown. 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  271 

• 

Imprisonment  for  debt  was  not  allowed.  The 
code  of  Solon,  five  hundred  years  before  Christ,  ter 
minated  at  Athens  that  mortgaging  of  the  body  which 
has  so  long  deformed  the  codes  of  modern  States. 

It  seems  doubtful,  whether  investments  in  real 
estate  were  profitable  ones.  In  the  cases  of  which 
accounts  are  preserved,  the  returns  seem  not  to  have 
exceeded  eight  or  nine  per  cent.  Yet  the  number  of 
those  who  lived  in  hired  houses,  was  hardly  less  than 
45,000,  with  a  proportionate  number  of  slaves. 

• 

PUBLIC    EXPENSES. 

Before  the  movement  in  favor  of  constitutional  lib 
erty,  modern  revolutions  were  often  the  result  of  finan 
cial  difficulties.  In  a  democracy,  no  distinction  can 
possibly  exist  between  the  interests  of  the  government 
and  the  people;  we  find  accordingly,  in  the  ancient 
republics,  that  fiscal  embarrassments  were  not  the 
causes  of  civil  commotions.  Money  was  as  highly 
valued,  and  the  expenses  of  Athens  were  proportionally 
as  great,  as  in  modern  governments ;  but  the  an 
cients  had  no  public  debt.  They  were  often  in  distress 
for  funds ;  but  violent  remedies  were  applied  ;  and  the 
oppression  did  not  remain  as  a  permanent  and  increas 
ing  burden  on  succeeding  generations. 

After  the  system  of  oppressing  the  allies  was  de 
veloped,  money  became  the  chief  lever  in  public  affairs ; 


272  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

• 

and  the  decline  of  the  State  was  at  hand.  Yet  pride 
of  character,  ambition,  and  the  hope  of  plunder  after 
victory,  still  preserved  the  spirit  of  enterprise.  The 
true  policy  of  a  popular  State  should  be,  to  dimmish 
the  public  expenses  ;  in  Athens  on  the  contrary,  to  the 
great  detriment  of  the  people,  new  wants  were  contin 
ually  invented ;  new  sources  of  prodigal  expenditure 
were  devised ;  and  the  finances  constantly  increased  in 
political  importance. 

A  regular  annual  estimate  of  the  public  revenue 
and  expenditure  seems  never  to  have  been  made  in 
Athens,  nor  to  have  been  customary  in  antiquity.  The 
usual  expenses  were  for  public  buildings,  public 
festivals,  distributions  and  wages  to  the  people  for 
legislative  and  judicial  services,  pay  of  the  troops, 
poor-rates,  public  rewards,  purchases  of  arms,  ships 
and  cavalry  horses.  The  extraordinary  expenses  in 
wars  cannot  be  estimated. 

The  public  buildings  of  Athens  were,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  numerous,  costly,  and  splendid.  The 
most  opulent  monarchs,  the  haughtiest  princes,  have 
not  been  able  to  equal  what  the  energies  of  the 
Athenian  multitude  called  into  existence.  The  Ro 
mans  could  do  no  more  than  imitate ;  and  when  re 
cently  Prussia  desired  that  the  principal  entrance  into 
its  royal  city  might  be  worthy  of  the  pride  of  a  rising 
power,  its  artists  could  propose  nothing  better  than  to 
reproduce  the  Propylsea  of  Athens.  The  dockyard  of 


ECONOMY    OF   ATHENS.  273 

Athens  alone  cost  $900,000.  The  fortifications  were 
on  a  gigantic  scale.  The  city  and  its  harbors  were 
protected  by  walls  sixty  feet  five  inches  high,  and  broad 
enough  for  two  wagons  to  pass  conveniently ;  of  faced 
stone,  bound  by  iron  bolts.  The  city  and  the  harbor 
were  connected  by  walls,  one  side  of  which  measured 
more  than  four  and  a  half,  the  other  nearly  four,  miles. 
These  were  originally  very  expensive,  and  constantly 
required  large  expenditures  for  repairs.  The  Propylasa 
cost  five  years'  labor,  and  $1,810,800  in  money.  Add 
to  these  the  Odeon,  the  hippodromes,  the  aqueducts, 
the  fountains,  the  public  baths,  the  ornaments  of  the 
citadel,  the  temples  of  Victory,  of  Neptune,  of  Minerva, 
all  adorned  with  the  costliest  works  of  art,  the  pave 
ments  of  the  streets,  the  public  road  to  Eleusis,  the 
numerous  altars,  which  pious  superstition  prodigally 
erected  and  endowed ;  and  it  will  be  evident,  that  a 
State  of  but  half  a  million  of  souls  must  have  practised 
self-denial  for  the  sake  of  public  magnificence.  Time 
and  the  violence  of  man  have  indeed  swept  away  most 
of  these  visible  representations  of  the  power,  piety,  taste, 
and  luxury  of  the  Attic  democracy.  Yet  the  ruins, 
which  remain,  are  the  admiration  of  all  beholders. 
A  few  weather-beaten  statues,  a  few  mangled  and 
broken  bas-reliefs,  torn  from  Athens,  now  constitute 
the  chief  wealth  in  sculpture,  which  the  British  empire 
contains.  Let  two  thousand  years  of  adversity  pass 
over  the  decline  of  London,  and  what  monuments 
18 


274  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

would  survive  to  tell  the  future  inquirers,  that  it  had 
been  the  wealthiest  metropolis  of  this  age,  and  had 
claimed  the  first  rank  also  for  intelligence  as  well  as 
for  thrift  ?  Except  St.  Paul's  (which  has  not  the  stamp 
of  eternity  upon  it  like  the  Parthenon),  and  the  Water 
loo  bridge,  there  is  nothing  which  would  bid  defiance 
to  time,  and  bear  testimony,  to  the  latest  generation,  of 
the  grandeur  of  British  power.  The  chief  city  of  the 
little  democracy  of  Attica  contained  within  its  precincts 
far  more  of  those  works  of  genius  which  elevate  the 
soul  above  the  ordinary  details  of  life,  and  quicken  the 


imagination. 


The  police  of  Athens  seems  to  have  been  limited  to 
a  patrol  of  armed  watchmen,  whose  duty  it  was  to  pre 
serve  tranquillity  in  the  streets,  and  to  afford  protection 
to  persons  and  property. 

The  festivals  were  a  great  source  of  extravagance. 
The  Athenians,  in  the  early  days  of  the  republic,  sacri 
ficed  liberally,  to  display  their  reverence  for  the  gods ; 
afterwards  prodigally,  that  the  people  might  riot  on  the 
offerings.  In  the  splendor  and  in  the  number  of  her 
festivals,  Athens  surpassed  all  other  Grecian  States. 
The  poets  were  invited  to  produce  their  magnificent 
dramas ;  tragedy  was  evoked  with  its  splendid  pall  and 
its  recollections  of  the  days  of  demigods ;  the  youthful 
beauty  of  the  city  appeared  in  the  choirs ;  music  lent 
its  attractions  to  heighten  the  vivid  interest  of  the 
stage ;  and  splendid  processions,  with  their  glittering 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  275 

pageantry  and  solemn  trains,  assisted  in  filling  up  a 
holiday  with  spectacles  that  might  attract  and  astonish 
the  rest  of  Greece.  "  You  never  postpone  your  fesfi- 
vals,"  says  Demosthenes,  "and  you  lavish  on  them 
larger  sums  than  you  expend  for  the  naval  service ; 
but  your  fleets  always  arrive  too  late."  "  Count  the 
cost  of  their  tragedies,"  says  Plutarch,  "  you  will  find 
that  their  (Edipuses,  and  Antigones,  and  Medeas,  and 
Electras,  cost  more  than  their  wars  for  supremacy  with 
the  other  Greeks,  and  their  struggles  for  freedom 
against  the  barbarians." 

But  a  still  greater  expense  grew  out  of  the  direct 
distribution  of  money  to  the  people.  The  tribute,  levied 
from  the  allies,  was  divided  among  the  poorer  citizens, 
whole  talents  at  a  time.  Confiscated  estates  were 
their  plunder.  The  poor  helped  themselves  out  of  the 
public  chest,  and  sometimes  dined  and  always  went  to 
the  theatres  at  the  cost  of  the  State. 

We  pay  our  legislators,  courts,  and  justices ;  the 
ancient  Athenians  went  further ;  they  paid  themselves 
for  attending  town  meetings.  The  whole  number  of 
voters  may  have  been  twenty  thousand,  of  whom  the 
majority  managed  all  public  affairs,  but  the  rich  and 
the  busy  did  not  usually  make  their  appearance  in  the 
assemblies,  where  they  were  sure  of  being  voted  down ; 
the  needy  never  failed.  In  this  way,  the  adminis 
tration  of  Athenian  affairs  fell  to  some  six  or  eight 
thousand  very  poor  men.  Masters  of  the  public 


276  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

treasury,  and  of  the  power  of  levying  taxes,  they 
voted  to  themselves  what  sums  they  could ;  till  at 
laSt  they  came  to  consider  politics  their  trade,  and 
deemed  it  but  fair  that  they  should  be  compensated  for 
participating  in  legislation.  As  there  was  no  represen 
tation,  and  business  was  conducted  as  in  our  town 
meetings,  the  plausible  idea  of  paying  for  legislation 
opened  the  way  to  a  support  for  every  citizen ;  the  rich 
naturally  declined  the  service  as  well  as  its  emoluments, 
and  the  poor  citizens  though  very  numerous,  yet  still 
limited  in  comparison  with  the  whole  population  of 
Athens,  obtained  a  monopoly  of  legislation  and  its 
wages.  Seven  and  a  half  cents  was  the  liberal  compen 
sation  which  an  Athenian  citizen  received  for  acting  in 
the  supreme  legislature  of  the  State.  We  have  reason 
to  suppose  that  8,000  usually  attended,  so  that  each 
Athenian  town-meeting  cost  the  State  $600.  There 
were  forty  regular  meetings  in  the  year ;  the  annual 
charge  was  therefore  $24,000. 

The  Council  of  Five  Hundred  were  paid  fifteen 
cents  for  every  day  of  actual  service.  We  see  in 
this  the  views  of  the  Athenians  in  regard  to  the 
compensation  of  public  officers.  They  allowed  them 
but  little  more  than  the  wages  of  a  laborer.  The  rela 
tive  value  of  money  we  have  stated  to  be  as  three  to 
one.  Our  House  of  Representatives  would  be  as  well 
paid  as  the  Athenian  senate,  if  their  pay  were  fixed  at 
forty-five  cents  a  day.  This  may  appear  strange ;  but 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  277 

it  is  in  conformity  with  the  Grecian  policy.  The  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  an  army  received,  as  we  have  seen, 
but  four  times  the  wages  of  a  private.  High  salaries 
are  not  at  ah1  classic. 

Athens  was  the  great  shire-town,  in  which  all  the 
courts  of  Attica  were  held,  and  where  the  causes  of  the 
allies  also  were  tried.  There  was  more  law  business 
done  at  Athens,  than  in  all  Greece  besides.  Nearly 
one  third  of  the  whole  number  of  citizens  sat  daily,  as 
judges,  except  on  such  days  as  were  appropriated  to 
religion,  or  to  general  assemblies.  Hence  it  was,  that 
Athens  swarmed  with  half-bred  lawyers,  pettifoggers, 
quarrelsome,  litigious  sophists.  The  daily  pay  of'  a 
judge  was  seven  and  a  half  cents.  Every  one,  on  en 
tering,  received  a  ticket  and  a  judge's  staff.  When 
the  day's  work  was  done,  he  returned  the  ticket  and 
took  his  emolument.  There  were  ten  courts,  each 
composed  of  five  hundred,  and  one  regularly  in  session. 
Mention  is  also  made  of  larger  courts,  composed  of  ten, 
fifteen,  and  even  twenty  hundred.  Allowing  6,000  as 
the  average  daily  number  of  judges  in  Athens,  they 
must  have  cost  the  State  $135,000  annually. 

The  public  orators,  advocates,  and  lawyers,  em 
ployed  by  the  people,  were  ten  in  number.  Their  fee, 
like  that  of  the  senators,  was  fifteen  cents  for  each  day's 
service.  Ambassadors  were  paid  with  equal  frugality ; 
their  travelling  expenses  were  also  publicly  defrayed, 
though  permanent  embassies  were  unknown.  Poets 


278  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

even  received  a  public  stipend.  No  person  could  draw 
double  pay  for  different  service ;  as,  for  example,  no  one 
could  claim  a  compensation  as  present  at  the  town 
meeting,  and  as  judge,  or  orator,  or  senator,  on  the 
same  day. 

The  unfortunate,  all  those  incapable  of  earning  a 
living,  were  sustained  by  the  eleemosynary  munificence 
of  the  State.  In  this  exercise  of  public  philanthropy, 
the  Athenians  were  not  imitated  by  the  other  Greeks ; 
to  them  exclusively  belongs  the  honor  of  providing  for 
the  poor,  the  helpless,  and  the  aged,  at  the  common 
charge.  The  Athenian  State  also  supported  and  edu 
cated  the  children  of  those  who  fell  in  battle.  Those 
who  were  crippled  in  war  received  a  pension.  Pisis- 
tratus  established  a  military  hospital.  As  to  the  pro 
vision  for  the  poor,  none  could  receive  the  benefit  of  it, 
except  they  had  less  property  than  forty-five  dollars.  Yet 
this  restriction  was  liberally  interpreted.  The  assistance 
which  was  afforded,  varied  from  two  and  a  half  to  five 
cents  daily. 

Public  rewards  and  honors  formed  a  charge  upon 
the  State.  Golden  crowns  were  sometimes  awarded, 
or  public  statues  erected.  The  dowry  paid  to  each  of 
the  daughters  of  Aristides,  amounted  to  more  than 
$450. 

That  the  Athenians  were  at  considerable  expense  in 
times  of  peace  to  colle  t  warlike  stores,  is  in  itself  evi 
dent.  The  revenue  of  Athens,  in  its  days  of  prosperity, 


ECONOMY    OF    ATHENS.  279 

was  $1,800,000;  a  large  income  for  so  small  a  State, 
and  which  could  not  have  been  collected,  except  by  the 
consent  of  the  allies  to  oppression. 

On  the  whole,  we  cannot  but  feel  a  strong  partiality 
for  the  Athenian  democracy ;  for  though  citizenship  in 
Athens  was  an  inheritance,  and  the  government  was  in 
the  hands  of  a  minority,  yet  it  was  the  nearest  approx 
imation  to  a  perfectly  popular  State,  of  which  ancient 
history  furnishes  the  example.  Our  own  revolution 
formed  a  new  era.  Our  constitutions  are  an  incompa 
rably  more  perfect  development  of  the  principle  of  civil 
equality,  and  therefore  do  not  contain  within  them 
selves  the  seeds  of  evil,  which  wrought  the  ruin  of 
the  ancient  States.  Luxury  may,  with  the  increase  of 
wealth,  diffuse  itself  among  private  individuals,  but 
frugality  remains  the  true  policy  of  the  State.  A 
portion  of  a  people,  whether  it  be  an  aristocracy, 
as  in  Venice  or  in  England,  or  a  separate  multitude, 
like  the  rulers  of  Attica,  may,  and  probably  will 
become  corrupt  and  unjust ;  a  nation,  which  acknow 
ledges  no  political  distinctions,  can  never  be  blind 
to  the  principles  of  equity  ;  for  justice  becomes  the  evi 
dent  and  permanent  interest  of  all.  With  us,  the  great 
body  of  the  citizens  is  sure  of  remaining  uncontarn- 
inated ;  we  have  far  more  to  apprehend  from  the  head 
long  ambition  or  downright  corruption  of  those  who 
are  the  depositaries  of  power. 


THE  DECLINE   OF  THE  KOMAN    PEOPLE. 

I. 

WHEN  Tiberius  Sempronius  Gracchus,  on  his  way 
to  Spain,  to  serve  in  the  army  before  Numantia,  trav 
elled  through  Italy,  he  was  led  to  observe  the  impover 
ishment  of  the  great  body  of  citizens  in  the  rural  dis 
tricts.  Instead  of  little  farms,  studding  the  country 
with  their  pleasant  aspect,  and  nursing  an  indepen 
dent  race,  he  beheld  nearly  all  the  lands  of  Italy  en 
grossed  by  large  proprietors  ;  and  the  plough  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  slave.  In  the  early  periods  of 
the  State,  Cincinnatus  at  work  in  his  field  was  the 
model  of  patriotism  ;  agriculture  and  war  had  been  the 
labor  and  office  of  freemen ;  but  of  these  the  greater 
number  had  now  been  excluded  from  employment  by 
the  increase  of  slavery,  and  its  tendency  to  confer  the 
exclusive  possession  of  the  soil  on  the  few.  The  pal 
aces  of  the  wealthy  towered  in  the  landscape  in  solitary 
grandeur ;  the  plebeians  hid  themselves  in  miserable 
hovels.  Deprived  of  the  dignity  of  freeholders,  they 
could  not  even  hope  for  occupation ;  for  the  opulent 


THE    DECLINE    OF    THE   11OMAN    PEOPLE.          281 

landowner  preferred  rather  to  make  use  of  his  slaves, 
whom  he  could  not  but  maintain,  and  who  constituted 
his  family.  Excepting  the  small  number  of  the  immeas 
urably  rich,  and  a  feeble  and  constantly  decreasing  class 
of  independent  husbandmen,  poverty  was  extreme.  The 
king  of  Syria  had  reverenced  the  edicts  of  Roman 
envoys,  as  though  they  had  been  the  commands  of 
Heaven ;  the  rulers  of  Egypt  had  exalted  the  Romans 
above  the  immortal  Gods ;  and  from  the  fertile  fields 
of  Western  Africa,  Masinissa  had  sent  word  that  he 
was  but  a  Roman  overseer.  Yet  a  great  majority  of 
the  Roman  citizens,  now  that  they  had  become  the 
conquerors  of  the  world,  were  poorer  than  their  fore 
fathers,  who  had  extended  their  ambition  only  to  the 
plains  round  Rome. 

The  elder  Gracchus,  when  his  mind  began  to  brood 
over  the  disasters  that  were  fast  gathering  in  heavy 
clouds  round  his  country,  was  in  the  bloom  of  man 
hood.  Sprung  from  an  honorable  family,  independent, 
though  not  of  the  most  opulent,  connected  with  the 
families  of  the  most  haughty  patricians  by  the  intermar 
riages  of  his  nearest  kinsmen,  the  son  of  a  hero  who  had 
been  censor,  had  twice  been  consul  and  had  twice 
gained  the  honors  of  a  triumph, — grandson  of  the  elder 
Scipio,  the  victor  of  Hannibal, — brother-in-law  of  the 
younger  Scipio  the  destroyer  of  Carthage, — he  might 
have  entered  the  career  of  ambition  with  every  as 
surance  of  success.  Endowed  by  the  kindness  of 


282  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

Heaven  with  admirable  genius,  he  had  also  enjoyed  an 
education  superior  to  that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries. 
His  excellent  mother,  whom  the  unanimous  testimony 
of  antiquity  declares  to  have  been  the  first  woman  of 
her  times,  had  assembled  round  his  youth  the  best  in 
structors  in  the  arts  and  in  letters ;  what  was  then  a 
rare  thing  in  Rome,  he  had  learned  to  rest  his  head  on 
the  bosom  of  the  Grecian  Muse.  Nor  were  the  quali 
ties  of  his  heart  inferior  to  his  talents  and  his  nurture. 
His  earliest  appearance  in  the  Roman  army  was  in  the 
final  war  against  Carthage,  under  the  command  of  his 
brother-in-law ;  and  when  Carthage  was  taken  by 
storm,  he,  the  impetuous  soldier  of  eighteen,  led 
the  onset,  and  was  the  first  to  ascend  the  walls  of  the 
burning  city.  Yet  he  was  gentle  in  all  his  dispositions  ; 
a  maidenly  modesty,  and  a  peaceful  composure  distin 
guished  his  character ;  his  purity  obtained  for  him  in 
youth  the  unusual  distinction  of  a  seat  among  the 
augurs.  His  truth  and  his  moderation  were  cele 
brated.  Numantia,  a  city  within  the  limits  of  the 
modern  kingdom  of  Castile,  had  resisted  the  Roman 
arms  with  an  invincible  fortitude,  which  the  com 
panions  of  Palafox  could  imitate,  but  not  equal.  But 
no  sooner  was  it  announced,  that  Tiberius  Gracchus 
had  appeared  as  a  messenger  before  its  ramparts,  than 
the  gates  opened,  the  natives  of  Spain  thronged  round 
his  steps,  hung  on  his  arms,  and  clung  to  his  hands. 
They  bade  him  take  from  their  public  stores  whatever 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE. 

treasures  he  desired ;  he  took  but  a  handful  of  incense, 
and  offered  it  to  the  Gods.  They  requested  him  to 
establish  the  basis  of  a  peace,  and  he  framed  a  treaty 
on  principles  of  mutual  independence. 

But,  in  the  vain  attempt  to  give  quiet  to  Spain, 
Tiberius  Gracchus  did  not  forget  the  miseries  of  Italy. 
Who,  that  has  reflected  on  the  history  of  nations,  has 
not  perceived  how  slow  is  the  progress  of  change  in  the 
condition  of  the  laboring  class  of  society  ?  It  is  three 
centuries  since  the  eloquent  and  disinterested  Calvin 
first  attempted,  in  the  language  and  on  the  soil  of 
France,  to  infuse  into  its  peasantry  an  ameliorating 
principle ;  and  in  all  that  period,  how  little  improve 
ment  has  taken  place  in  the  physical  condition  and 
the  intellectual  culture  of  the  humbler  classes  of  the 
French  !  If  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  millions  of  her 
English  subjects  could  not  write  nor  read,  it  was  hardly 
less  true  of  millions  during  the  reign  of  George  IV. 
History  has  consisted  mainly  of  the  personal  achieve 
ments  of  a  few  individuals,  the  victories  of  armies,  the 
scandals  of  courts,  the  intrigues  of  the  palace  ;  on  the 
character,  rights,  and  progress  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
people,  it  has  been  silent.  The  Greatest  Number  has 
been  forgotten  by  the  annalist,  as  its  happiness  has  been 
neglected  by  the  lawgiver. 

Human  nature  was  the  same  of  old ;  but  Gracchus, 
in  hoping  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  impoverished 
majority  of  his  countrymen,  refused  to  indulge  in  the 


284  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

vain  desires  of  an  idle  philanthropy.  With  the  en 
larged  philosophy  of  an  able  statesman,  he  sought  to 
understand  the  whole  nature  of  the  evil,  and  to  devise 
efficacious  measures  for  its  remedy. 

He  saw  the 'inhabitants  of  the  Roman  State  divided 
into  the  few  wealthy  nobles ;  the  many  indigent  citi 
zens  ;  the  still  more  numerous  class  of  slaves.  Rea 
soning  correctly,  he  perceived  that  it  was  slavery, 
which  crowded  the  poor  freeman  out  of  employment, 
and  barred  the  way  to  his  advancement.  It  was  the 
aim  of  Gracchus  not  so  much  to  mend  the  condition  of 
the  slaves,  as  to  lift  the  brood  of  idlers  into  dignity ;  to 
give  them  land,  to  make  them  industrious  and  useful,  and 
so  to  repose  on  them  the  liberties  of  the  State.  With 
the  fixedness  of  an  iron  will,  he  resolved  to  increase  the 
number  of  the  landed  proprietors  of  Italy,  to  create  a 
ROMAN  YEOMANRY.  This  was  the  basis  of  his  radical 
reform. 

The  means  were  at  hand.  The  lands  in  Italy  were 
of  two  classes ;  private  estates,  and  public  domains. 
With  private  estates,  Gracchus  had  no  thought  to 
interfere.  The  public  domains,  even  though  they  had 
been  long  usurped  by  the  patricians,  were  to  be  re 
claimed  as  public  property,  and  to  be  appropriated  to 
the  use  of  the  people,  under  restrictions  which  should 
prevent  their  future  appropriation  by  the  few.  To  ef 
fect  this  object,  required  no  new  order ;  the  proper 
decree  was  already  engraved  among  the  tablets  of 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    285 

the  Roman  laws.  It  was  necessary  only  to  revive  the 
law  of  Licinius,  which  had  slumbered  for  two  centuries 
unrepealed. 

In  a  republic,  he  that  will  execute  great  designs 
must  act  with  an  organized  party.  Gracchus  took 
counsel  with  the  most  disinterested  men  of  Rome ; 
with  A^pius  Claudius,  his  father-in-law,  a  patrician  of 
the  purest  blood ;  with  the  great  lawyer  Mutius  Scse- 
vola,  who  was  of  consular  dignity  ;  and  with  Crassus, 
the  leader  of  the  priesthood  ;  all  of  unimpeachable  pa 
triotism,  and  friends  to  the  reform.  But  his  supporters 
at  the  polls  could  be  none  other  than  the  common  peo 
ple,  composed  of  the  impoverished  citizens,  and  the 
very  few  husbandmen  who  had  still  saved  some  scanty 
acres  from  the  grasp  of  the  aristocracy. 

The  people  rallied  to  the  support  of  their  cham 
pion;  and  Gracchus,  being  elected  their  tribune,  was 
able  to  bring  forward  his  Agrarian  Law.  "  The  wild 
beasts  in  your  land,"  it  was  so  he  addressed  the  multi 
tude,  "have  then-  dens;  but  the  soldiers  of  Italy  have 
only  water  and  air.  Without  houses  or  property,  they, 
with  their  wives  and  children,  are  vagabonds.  Your 
commanders  deceive  you,  when  they  bid  you  fight  for 
your  hearths,  and  your  gods ;  you  have  no  hearths,  you 
have  no  household  gods.  It  is  for  the  insolence  and 
luxury  of  others,  that  you  shed  your  blood.  You  are 
called  the  lords  of  the  world,  and  you  do  not  possess  a 
square  foot  of  soil." 


286  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

The  famed  Agrarian  Law,  relating  only  to  the  pub 
lic  domain,  was  distinguished  by  mitigating  clauses. 
To  each  of  those  who  had  appropriated  the  land 
without  a  right,  it  generously  left  five  hundred  acres ; 
to  each  of  their  minor  children,  two  hundred  and  fifty 
more ;  and  it  also  promised  to  make  from  the  public 
treasury  further  remuneration  for  improvement.  To 
every  needy  citizen  it  probably  allotted  not  more  than 
ten  acres ;  perhaps  less.  Thus  it  was  designed  to 
create  in  Italy  a  yeomanry ;  instead  of  slaves,  to  sub 
stitute  free  laborers;  to  plant  liberty  firmly  in  the 
land ;  to  perpetuate  the  Roman  Commonwealth,  by 
identifying  its  principles  with  the  culture  of  the  soil. 
Omnium  rerum  ex  quibus  aliquid  adquiritur — such  were 
long  the  views  of  intelligent  Romans — nihil  est  agri- 
culturd  melius,  nihil  uberius,  nihil  dukius,  nihil  homine, 
NIHIL  LIBERO  DiGNius.  No  pursuit  is  more  worthy 
of  the  freeman  than  agriculture.  Gracchus  claimed  it 
for  the  free. 

* 

Philanthropy,  when  it  contemplates  a  slaveholding 
country,  may  have  its  first  sympathies  excited  for  the 
slaves ;  but  it  is  a  narrow  benevolence  which  stops 
there.  The  needy  freeman  is  in  a  worse  condition. 
The  slave  has  his  task,  and  also  his  home  and  his 
bread.  He  is  the  member  of  a  wealthy  family.  The 
indigent  freeman  has  neither  labor,  nor  house,  nor 
food;  and,  divided  by  a  broad  gulf  from  the  upper 
class,  he  has  neither  hope  nor  ambition.  He  is  so 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    287 

abject,  that  even  the  slave  despises  him.  For  the 
interest  of  the  slaveholder  is  diametrically  opposite  to 
that  of  the  free  laborer.  The  slaveholder  is  the  com 
petitor  of  the  free  laborer,  and  by  the  lease  of  slaves, 
takes  the  bread  from  his  mouth.  The  wealthiest  man 
in  Rome  was  the  competitor  of  the  poorest  free  car 
penter.  The  patricians  took  away  the  business  of  the 
sandal-maker.  The  existence  of  slavery  made  the 
opulent  owners  of  bondmen  the  rivals  of  the  poor ; 
greedy  after  the  profits  of  their  labor,  and  monopolizing 
those  profits  through  their  slaves.  In  every  community 
where  slavery  is  tolerated,  the  poor  freeman  will  always 
be  found  complaining  of  hard  times. 

The  laws  of  Gracchus  cut  the  patricians  with  a 
double  edge.  Their  fortunes  consisted  in  land  and 
slaves ;  it  questioned  their  titles  to  the  public  terri 
tories,  and  it  tended  to  force  emancipation,  by  making 
their  slaves  a  burden.  In  taking  away  the  soil,  it  took 
away  the  power  that  kept  their  live  machinery  in 
motion.  A  real  crisis  had  come,  such  as  hardly  occurs 
to  a  nation  in  the  progress  of  many  centuries.  Men 
are  in  the  habit  of  proscribing  Julius  Cesar  as  the 
destroyer  of  the  Commonwealth.  The  civil  wars,  the 
revolutions  of  Cesar,  the  miserable  vicissitudes  of  the 
Roman  emperors,  the  avarice  of  the  nobles  and  the 
rabble,  the  crimes  of  the  forum  and  the  palace,  all  have 
their  germ  in  the  ill  success  of  the  reform  of  Grac 
chus. 


288  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

We  pass  over  the  proofs  of  moderation  which  the 
man  of  the  people  exhibited,  by  appearing  in  the 
Senate,  where  he  had  hoped  to  obtain  from  the  justice 
of  the  patricians  some  reasonable  compromise ;  and 
where  he  wras  received  very  much  as  O'Connell  was 
received  in  the  English  Parliament,  when  he  pleaded 
for  Ireland.  The  attempt  of  the  aristocracy  to 
check  all  procedures  in  the  assembly  of  the  people, 
by  instigating  another  tribune  to  interpose  his  veto, 
was  defeated  by  the  prompt  decision  of  the  citizens  to 
dismiss  the  faithless  representative ;  and  the  policy 
of  Gracchus  seemed  established  by  the  unanimous 
decision  of  the  commons  in  favor  of  his  decree. 

Such  delays  had  been  created  by  his  opponents, 
that  the  year  of  his  tribuneship  was  nearly  passed ;  his 
re-election  was  needed  in  order  to  carry  his  decree 
into  effect.  But  the  evil  in  Rome  was  already  too 
deep  to  be  removed.  The  election  day  for  tribunes 
was  in  mid-summer;  the  few  husbandmen,  the  only 
shadow  of  a  Roman  yeomanry,  were  busy  in  the  field, 
gathering  their  crops,  and  failed  to  come  to  the  sup 
port  of  their  champion.  He  was  left  to  rest  his 
defence  on  the  rabble  of  the  city ;  and  though  early 
in  the  morning  great  crowds  of  the  people  gathered 
together,  and  though,  as  Gracchus  appeared  in  the 
forum,  a  shout  of  joy  rent  the  skies,  and  was  redoubled 
as  he  ascended  the  steps  of  the  Capitol,  yet  when  the 
patricians,  determined  at  every  hazard  to  defeat  the 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    289 

* 

assembly,  came  with  the  whole  weight  of  their  adhe 
rents  in  a  mass,  the  timid  flock,  yielding  to  the  senti 
ment  of  awe  rather  than  of  cowardice,  fled  like  sheep 
before  wolves ;  and  left  their  defender,  the  incom 
parable  Tiberius,  to  be  beaten  to  death  by  the  clubs  of 
senators.  Three  hundred  of  his  most  faithful  friends 
were  left  lifeless  in  the  market-place.  In  the  fury  of 
triumphant  passion,  the  corpse  of  the  tribune  was 
dragged  through  the  streets,  and  thrown  into  the  Tiber. 

n. 

The  deluded  nobles  raised  the  full  chorus  of  victory 
and  joy.  They  believed  that  the  Senate  had  routed 
the  people ;  but  it  was  the  avenging  spirit  of  slavery 
that  had  struck  the  first  deadly  wound  into  the  bosom 
of  Rome.  When  a  funeral  pyre  was  kindled  to  the 
manes  of  Tiberius  Gracchus,  the  retributive  Nemesis 
lighted  the  torch,  which,  though  it  burned  secretly 
for  a  while,  at  last  kindled  the  furies  of  social  war, 
and  involved  the  civilized  world  in  the  conflagra 
tion. 

The  murder  proved  the  weakness  of  the  Senate; 
they  could  defeat  the  people  only  by  violence.  But 
the  blood  of  their  victim,  like  the  blood  of  other  mar 
tyrs,  cemented  his  party.  It  was  impossible  to  carry 
the  Agrarian  Law  into  execution ;  it  was  equally  im 
possible  to  effect  its  repeal. 

Gracchus  had  interceded  for  the  unhappy  indigent 
19 


290  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

freemen,  whose  independence  was  crushed  by  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery.  The  slaves  themselves  were  equally 
sensible  of  their  .wrongs ;  and  in  the  island  of  Sicily 
they  resolved  on  an  insurrection.  Differing  in  com 
plexion,  in  language,  in  habits,  the  hope  of  liberty 
amalgamated  the  heterogeneous  mass.  Eunus,  their 
wise  leader,  in  the  spirit  of  the  East,  employed  the 
power  of  superstition  to  rally  the  degraded  serfs  to  his 
banner,  and,  like  Mahomet,  pretended  a  revelation  from 
heaven.  Sicily  had  been  divided  into  a  few  great 
plantations ;  and  now  the  voice  of  a  leader,  joining  the 
fanaticism  of  religion  to  the  enthusiasm  for  freedom, 
awakened  the  slaves,  not  in  Sicily  only,  but  in  Italy,  to 
the  use  of  arms,  and  the  horrors  of  a  servile  war. 
Cruel  overseers  were  stabbed  with  pitchforks ;  the  de 
fenceless  were  cut  to  pieces  by  scythes ;  tribunals, 
hitherto  unheard  of,  were  established,  where  each 
family  of  slaves  might  arraign  its  master,  and,  counting 
up  his  ferocities,  adjudge  punishment  for  every  re 
membered  wrong.  Well  may  the  Latin  historian  grow 
impatient  as  he  relates  the  disgraceful  tale.  Quis 
aequo  animo  ferat  in  principe  gentium  populo  bella  ser- 
vorum  ?  The  Romans  had  fought  their  allies,  yet  had 
fought  with  freemen ;  let  the  queen  of  nations  blush, 
for  she  must  now  contend  with  victorious  slaves. 
Thrice,  nay,  four  times,  were  her  armies  defeated; 
the  insurrection  spread  into  Italy;  four  times  were 
the  camps  of  praetors  stormed  and  taken ;  the  soldiers 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.     291 

of  the  republic  became  the  captives  of  their  bondmen. 
The  army  of  the  slaves  increased  to  200,000.  It  is 
said,  that  a  million  of  lives  were  lost ;  the  statement  is 
exaggerated;  but  Sicily  suffered  more  from  the  de 
vastations  of  this,  than  of  the  Carthaginian  war. 
Twice  were  consuls  unsuccessful.  At  length,  after 
years  of  defeat,  the  benefits  of  discipline  gave  success 
to  the  Roman  forces.  The  last  garrison  of  the  last 
citadel  of  the  slaves  disdained  to  surrender,  could  no 
longer  resist,  and  escaped  the  ignominy  of  captivity 
by  one  universal  suicide.  The  conquerors  of  slaves,  a 
new  thing  in  Rome,  returned  to  enjoy  the  honors  of  an 
ovation. 

The  object  of  Tiberius  Gracchus,  continued  by  his 
eloquent  and  equally  unhappy  brother,  who  moreover 
was  the  enlightened  and  energetic  advocate  of  a  system 
of  internal  improvement  in  Italy,  was  the  melioration 
of  the  condition  of  the  indigent  freemen.  The  great 
servile  insurrection  was  designed  to  effect  the  emanci 
pation  of  slaves  ;  and  both  were  unsuccessful.  But  God 
is  just  and  his  laws  are  invincible.  The  social  evil  next 
made  its  effects  apparent  on  the  patricians,  and  began 
with  silent  but  sure  influence  to  corrupt  the  virtue  of 
families,  and  even  to  destroy  domestic  life.  Slavery 
tends  to  diminish  the  frequency  of  marriages  in  the 
class  of  masters.  In  a  state  where  emancipation  is 
forbidden,  the  slave  population  will  perpetually  gain 
in  relative  numbers.  We  will  not  stop  to  develope 


292  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

the  three  or  four  leading  causes  of  this  result,  pride 
and  the  habits  of  luxury,  the  facilities  of  licentious 
gratification,  the  circumscribed  limits  of  productive 
industry;  some  of  which  causes  operate  exclusively, 
and  all  of  them  principally,  on  the  free.  The  position 
is  certain  and  is  universal;  nowhere  was  it  more 
amply  exemplified  than  in  Rome.  The  rich  preferred 
the  dissoluteness  of  indulgence  to  marriage ;  and  celibacy 
became  so  general,  that  the  aristocracy  was  obliged  by 
lawT  to  favor  the  institution,  which,  in  a  society  where 
all  are  free,  constitutes  the  solace  of  labor  and  the  orna 
ment  of  life.  A  Roman  censor,  in  an  address  to  the 
people,  stigmatized  matrimony  as  a  troublesome  com 
panionship,  and  recommended  it  only  as  a  patriotic 
sacrifice  of  private  pleasure  to  public  duty.  The  de 
population  of  the  upper  class  was  so  considerable,  that 
the  waste  required  to  be  supplied  by  emancipation; 
and  repeatedly  there  have  been  periods,  when  the 
majority  of  the  Romans  had  once  been  bondmen. 
It  was  this  extensive  celibacy  and  the  consequent  want 
of  succession,  that  gave  a  peculiar  character  to  the 
Roman  laws,  relating  to  adoption. 

The  free  middling  class,  which  even  to  the  time  of 
the  younger  Gracchus  had  retained  dignity  enough  to 
seek  the  amelioration  of  its  condition  by  the  action  of 
laws,  was  destroyed;  society  became  hopelessly  di 
vided  into  the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor;  and 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPIE.     293 

slaves,  who  performed  all  the  labor,  occupied  the  in 
termediate  position  between  the  two  classes. 

The  first  step  in  the  progress  of  degradation  con 
stituted  the  citizens,  by  their  own  vote,  a  class  of 
.paupers.  They  called  on  the  State  to  feed  them  from 
the  public  granaries.  We  cheerfully  sustain  in  decent 
competence  the  aged,  the  widow,  the  cripple,  the  sick 
and  the  orphan ;  Rome  supplied  the  great  body  of  her 
freemen.  England,  who  also  feeds  a  large  proportion 
of  her  laboring  class,  intrusts  to  her  paupers  no  elective 
franchise.  Rome  fed  with  eleemosynary  corn  the 
majority  of  her  citizens,  who  retained  the  privilege  of 
electing  the  government,  and  the  right  of  supreme, 
ultimate  legislation.  Thus  besides  the  select  wealthy 
idlers,  here  was  a  new  class  of  idlers,  a  multitudinous 
aristocracy,  having  no  estate  but  their  citizenship, 
no  inheritance  but  their  right  of  suffrage.  Both 
were  to  derive  support  from  the  slaves :  the  Senate 
directly,  through  the  revenues  of  their  plantations ;  the 
commons  indirectly,  out  of  the  coffers  of  the  Com 
monwealth.  It  was  a  burden  greater  than  the  fruits 
of  slave  industry  could  bear ;  the  deficiency  was  sup 
plied  by  the  plunder  of  foreign  countries.  The  Ro 
mans,  as  a  nation,  became  a  horde  of  robbers. 

This  earliest  measure  was  ominous  enough  ;  the  sec- 

_ond  was  still  more  alarming.     A  demagogue  appeared, 

and  gaining  office  and  the  conduct  of  a  Avar,  organized 

these  pauper  electors  into  a  regular  army.     The  derna- 


294  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

gogue  was  Marius.  Hitherto  the  Senate  had  exercised 
an  exclusive  control  over  the  brute  force  of  the  Com 
monwealth  ;  the  mob  was  now  armed  and  enrolled,  and 
led  by  an  accomplished  chieftain.  Both  parties  being 
thus  possessed  of  great  physical  strength,  the  civil 
wTars  between  the  nobles  and  the  impoverished  free 
men,  the  select  aristocracy,  and  the  multitudinous 
aristocracy  of  Rome,  could  not  but  ensue.  Marius  and 
Sylla  were  the  respective  leaders  ;  the  streets  of  Rome, 
and  the*  fields  of  Italy  became  the  scenes  of  massacre  ; 
and  the  oppressed  bondmen  had  the  satisfaction  of 
beholding  the  jarring  parties  in  the  nation  which  had 
enslaved  them,  shed  each  other's  blood  as  freely  as 
water.  They  had,  moreover,  their  triumph.  Sylla  se 
lected  ten  thousand  from  their  number,  and  to  gain 
influence  for  himself  at  the  polls,  conferred  on  them 
freedom,  and  the  elective  franchise. 

Of  the  two  great  leaders  of  the  opposite  factions,  it 
has  been  asserted  that  Sylla  had  a  distinct  purpose, 
and  that  Marius  never  had.  Sylla  was  the  organ  of  the 
aristocracy ;  to  the  party  which  already  possessed  all  the 
wealth,  he  desired  to  secure  all  the  political  power. 
This  was  a  definite  object,  and  in  one  sense  was  attain 
able.  Having  effected  a  revolution,  and  having  taken 
vengeance  on  the  enemies  of  the  Senate,  he  abdicated 
office.  He  could  not  have  retained  perpetual  author 
ity  ;  the  forms  of  the  ancient  republic  were  then  too 
vigorous,  and  the  party  on  which  he  rested  for  support, 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE. 

would  not  have  tolerated  the  usurpation.  He  estab 
lished  the  supremacy  of  the  Senate,  and  retired  into 
private  life.  Marius,  as  the  leader  of  the  people,  was 
met  by  insuperable  difficulties.  The  existence  of  a 
slave  population  rendered  it  impossible  to  elevate  the 
character  of  his  indigent  constituents ;  nor  were  they 
possessed  of  sufficient  energy  to  grasp  political  power 
with  tenacity.  He  could  therefore  only  embody  them 
among  his  soldiers.  His  partisans  suffered  from  evils, 
which  it  required  centuries  to  ripen  and  more  than  a 
thousand  years  to  heal ;  Marius  could  have  no  plan. 


in. 


Thus  the  want  of  a  great  middling  class,  consequent 
on  the  monopoly  of  land  and  the  institution  of  slavery, 
had  been  the  ultimate  cause  of  two  political  revolutions. 
The  indigence  of  the  commons  had  led  the  Gracchi 
to  appear  as  the  advocates  of  reform,  and  had  en 
couraged  Marius  to  become  their  military  leader.  In 
the  murder  of  the  former,  the  Senate  had  displayed 
their  success  in  exciting  mobs  ;  and  in  resistance  to  the 
latter,  they  had  roused  up  a  defender  of  their  usur 
pations.  The  aristocracy  was  satisfied  with  its  tri 
umphs  ;  the  impoverished  majority,  accustomed  to 
their  abjectness,  made  only  the  additional  demand 
of  amusements  at  the  public  expense ;  and  were  also 
ignobly  content.  The  slaves  alone  murmured,  and  in 


296  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

Spartacus,  one  of  their  number,  they  found  a  man  of 
genius  and  courage,  capable  of  becoming  their  leader. 
Roman  legislation  had  done  nothing  for  them;  they 
determined  upon  a  general  insurrection,  to  be  followed 
by  emigration.  The  cry  went  forth  from  the  plains  of 
Lombardy,  reached  the  fields  of  Campania,  and  was 
echoed  through  every  valley  among  the  Apennines. 
The  gladiators  burst  the  prisons  of  then-  keepers  ;  the 
field-servant  threw  down  his  manure-basket ;  Syrian 
and  Scythian,  the  thrall  from  Macedonia  and  from 
Carthage,  the  wretches  from  South  Gaul,  the  Spaniard, 
the  African,  awoke  to  resistance.  The  barbarian,  who 
had  been  purchased  to  shed  his  blood  in  the  arena,  re 
membered  his  hut  on  the  Danube ;  the  Greek,  not  yet 
indifferent  to  freedom,  panted  for  release.  It  was  an 
insurrection,  as  solemn  in  its  object  as  it  was  fearful  in 
its  extent.  Rome  was  on  the  brink  of  ruin.  Spartacus 
pointed  to  the  Alps ;  beyond  their  heights  were  fields, 
where  the  fugitives  might  plant  their  colony ;  there 
they  might  revive  the  practice  of  freedom ;  there  the 
oppressed  might  found  a  new  state  on  the  basis  of 
benevolence,  and  in  the  spirit  of  justice.  A  common 
interest  would  unite  the  bondmen  of  the  most  remote 
lineage,  the  most  various  color,  in  a  firm  and  happy 
republic.  Already  the  armies  of  four  Roman  generals 
had  been  defeated ;  already  the  immense  emigration 
was  on  its  way  to  the  Alps. 

If  a  mass  of  slaves  could,  at  any  moment,  on  break- 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.     297 

ing  their  fetters,  find  themselves  capable  of  establishing 
a  liberal  government ;  if  they  could  at  once,  on  being 
emancipated,  or  on  emancipating  themselves,  appear 
possessed  of  civic  virtue,  slavery  would  be  deprived  of 
more  than  half  its  horrors.  But  the  institution,  while 
it  binds  the  body,  corrupts  the  mind.  The  outrages 
which  men  commit  when  they  first  regain  their  free 
dom,  furnish  the  strongest  argument  against  the  con 
dition  which  can  render  human  nature  capable  of  such 
crimes.  Idleness  and  treachery  and  theft,  are  the  vices 
of  slavery.  The  followers  of  Spartacus,  when  the  pin 
nacles  of  the  Alps  were  almost  within  their  sight, 
turned  aside  to  plunder;  and  the  Roman  army  was 
able  to  gain  the  advantage,  when  the  fugitive  slave  was 
changed  from  a  defender  of  personal  liberty  into  a 
plunderer. 

The  struggle  took  place  precisely  at  a  moment 
when  the  Roman  State  was  most  endangered  by  foreign 
enemies.  But  for  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  com 
munication,  which  rendered  a  close  coalition  between 
remote  armies  impossible,  it  would  have  sunk  beneath 
the  storm ;  and  from  the  shattered  planks  of  its  noble 
ruins,  the  slaves  alone  would  have  been  able  to  build 
themselves  a  little  bark  of  hope,  to  escape  from  the 
desolation,  and  occupy  by  right  of  conquest  the  future 
heritage  of  the  Cesars. 


298  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 


IV. 


The  suppression  of  the  great  insurrection  of  Spar- 
tacus  brings  us  to  the  age  of  the  triumvirs,  and  the 
approaching  career  of  Julius  Cesar.  To  form  a  proper 
judgment  of  his  designs  and  their  character,  we  must 
endeavor  to  gain  some  distinct  idea  of  the  condition  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Italy  during  his  time,  as  divided  into 
the  three  classes  of  nobles,  indigent  citizens,  and  slaves. 

The  ARISTOCRACY  owned  the  soil  and  its  cultivators. 
The  vast  capacity  for  accumulation,  which  the  laws 
of  society  secure  to  capital  in  a  greater  degree  than  to 
personal  exertion,  displays  itself  nowhere  so  clearly  as 
in  slaveholding  states,  where  the  laboring  class  is  but 
a  portion  of  the  capital  of  the  opulent.  As  wealth 
consists  chiefly  in  land  and  slaves,  the  rates  of  interest 
are,  from  universally  operative  causes,  always  com 
paratively  high ;  the  difficulty  of  advancing  with  bor 
rowed  capital  proportionably  great.  The  small  land 
holder  finds  himself  unable  to  compete  with  those  who 
are  possessed  of  whole  cohorts  of  bondmen  ;  his  slaves, 
his  lands,  rapidly  pass,  in  consequence  of  his  debts,  into 
the  hands  of  the  more  opulent.  The  large  plantations 
are  constantly  swallowing  up  the  smaller  ones;  and 
land  and  slaves  come  to  be  engrossed  by  a  few.  Before 
Cesar  passed  the  Rubicon,  this  condition  existed  in  its 
extreme  in  the  Roman  State.  The  rural  indigent  crept 
within  the  walls  of  Rome.  A  free  laborer  was  hardly 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.     299 

known.  The  large  proprietors  of  slaves  not  only  tilled 
their  immense  plantations,  but  also  indulged  their 
avarice  in  training  their  slaves  to  every  species  of 
labor,  and  letting  them  out,  as  horses  from  a  livery 
stable,  for  the  performance  of  every  conceivable  species 
of  work.  Four  or  five  hundred  were  not  an  uncommon 
number  in  one  family ;  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  some 
times  belonged  to  one  master.  The  immense  wealth 
of  Crassus  consisted  chiefly  in  lands  and  slaves ;  on  the 
number  of  his  slaves  we  hardly  (Jare  hazard  a  con 
jecture.  Of  joiners  and  masons  he  had  over  five  hun 
dred.  Nor  was  this  the  whole  evil.  The  nobles, 
having  impoverished  their  lands,  became  usurers,  and 
had  their  agents  dispersed  over  all  the  provinces.  The 
censor  Cato  closed  his  career  by  recommending  usury, 
as  more  productive  than  agriculture ;  and  such  was  the 
prodigality  of  the  Roman  planters,  that,  to  indulge 
their  fondness  for  luxury,  many  of  them  mortgaged 
their  estates  to  the  money-lenders.  Thus  the  lands  of 
Italy,  at  best  in  the  hands  of  a  few  proprietors, 
became  virtually  vested  in  a  still  smaller  number 
of  usurers.  No  man's  house,  no  man's  person,  was 
secure.  Nulli  est  certa  domus,  nullum  sine  pig  nor  e 
corpus.  Hence  corruption  readily  found  its  way  into 
the  Senate  ;  the  votes  of  that  body,  not  less  than  the 
votes  of  the  poorer  citizens,  were  a  merchantable  com 
modity.  Venalis  Curia patrum.  The  wisdom  and  the 
decrees  of  the  Senate  were  for  sale  to  the  highest  bidder. 


300  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

The  FREE  CITIZENS,  who  still  elected  tribunes  and 
consuls,  and  were  still  sometimes  convened  in  a  sort  of 
town-meeting,  were  poor  and  degraded.  But  the  right 
of  suffrage  insured  them  a  maintenance.  The  petty 
offices  in  the  Commonwealth  were  filled  with  their 
number,  and  such  as  retained  some  capacity  for  busi 
ness  found  many  a  lucrative  job,  in  return  for  their  in 
fluence  and  their  votes.  The  custom-houses,  the 
provinces,  the  internal  police,  offered  inviting  situations 
to  moderate  ambition.  The  rest  clamored  for  bread 
from  the  public  treasury,  for  free  tickets  of  admission 
to  the  theatre  and  to  gladiatorial  shows,  where  men 
were  butchered  at  the  cost  of  the  office-seeking  aris 
tocracy  for  the  amusement  of  the  majority.  But  there 
existed  no  free  manufacturing  establishments,  no  free 
farmers,  no  free  laborers,  no  free  mechanics.  The 
State  possessed  some  of  the  forms  of  a  democracy; 
but  the  life-giving  principle  of  a  democracy,  prosperous 
free  labor,  was  wanting. 

The  third  class  was  the  class  of  SLAVES.  It  was 
three  times  as  numerous  as  both  the  others ;  though, 
as  we  have  already  observed,  the  whole  body  belonged 
almost  exclusively  to  the  few  very  wealthy.  Their 
numbers  excited  constant  apprehension ;  but  care  was 
taken  not  to  distinguish  them  by  a  peculiar  dress. 
Their  ranks  were  recruited  in  various  ways.  The 
captives  in  war  were  sold  at  auction.  Cicero,  during  the 
little  campaign  in  which  he  was  commander,  sold  men 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    301 

enough  to  produce  at  half  price  about  half  a  million 
dollars.  When  it  was  told  in  Rome  that  Cesar  had 
invaded  Britain,  the  people,  in  the  true  spirit  of 
robbers,  could  not  but  ask  one  another,  what  plunder 
he  could  hope  to  find  there.  "  There  is  not  a  scruple 
of  silver,"  said  they,  "  in  the  whole  island  ; "  neque 
argenti  scrupulum  in  ilia  insula,  "  Yes,"  it  was  truly 
answered,  "  but  he  will  bring  slaves." 

The  second  mode  of  supplying  the  slave  market 
was  by  commerce  ;  and  this  supply  was  so  uniform  and 
abundant,  that  the  price  of  an  ordinary  laborer  hardly 
varied  for  centuries.  The  reason  is  obvious ;  where  the 
slave  merchant  gets  his  cargoes  from  kidnappers,  the 
first  cost  is  inconsiderable.  The  great  centres  of  this 
traffic  were  in  the  harbors  bordering  on  the  Euxine ; 
and  Scythians  were  often  stolen.  Caravans  penetrated 
the  deserts  of  Africa,  and  made  regular  hunts  for 
slaves.  Blacks  were  highly  valued;  they  were  rare, 
and  therefore  both  male  and  female  negroes  were 
favorite  articles  of  luxury  among  the  opulent  Romans. 
At  one  period,  Delos  was  most  remarkable  as  the  em 
porium  for  slavers.  It  had  its  harbors,  chains,  prisons, 
every  thing  so  amply  arranged  to  favor  a  brisk  traffic, 
that  ten  thousand  slaves  could  change  hands  and  be 
shipped  in  a  single  day ;  an  operation,  which  would 
have  required  thirty-three  or  thirty-four  ships  of  the 
size  of  the  vessel  in  which  Paul  the  Apostle  was  wrecked. 
There  was  hardly  a  port  in  the  Roman  empire,  conve- 


302  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

nient  for  kidnapping  foreigners,  in  which  the  slave- 
trade  was  not  prosecuted.  In  most  heathen  countries, 
also,  men  would  sell  their  own  children  into  bondage. 
The  English  continued  to  do  so,  even  after  the  intro 
duction  of  Christianity.  In  modern  times,  when  men 
incur  debts,  they  have  mortgaged  their  own  bodies  ;  the 
ancients  mortgaged  their  sons  and  daughters.  Kidnap 
ping,  and  the  sale  of  one's  offspring,  were  so  common,  as 
to  furnish  interesting  incidents  to  the  writers  of  novels. 

Besides  these  sources,  the  offspring  of  every  female 
slave,  whoever  might  be  its  father,  was  also  a  slave. 

The  legal  condition  of  the  slaves  was  extremely 
abject.  No  protection  was  afforded  his  limb  or  his  life, 
against  the  avarice  or  rage  of  a  master.  The  female 
had  no  defence  for  her  virtue  and  her  honor.  Instan 
ces  have  occurred,  where  the  young  female  convert  to 
Christianity  was  punished  by  being  exposed  to  public 
and  legalized  insults,  the  most  odious  to  female  purity. 
A  remnant  of  the  abuse  forms  the  plot  of  Shakspeare's 
play  of  Pericles.  No  marriages  could  take  place  among 
slaves ;  they  had  no  property ;  they  could  make  no 
valid  compact ;  they  could  hardly  give  testimony,  ex 
cept  on  the  rack.  The  ties  of  affection  and  blood  were 
disregarded.  In  the  eye  of  the  law  a  slave  was  nobody. 

The  manner  in  which  the  laborers  on  the  great 
plantations  were  treated,  resembled  the  modern  state- 
prison  discipline.  They  were  sent  out  by  day  to  labor 
in  chains,  and  at  night  were  locked  up  in  cells. 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    303 

The  refractory  were  confined  in  subterranean  dungeons. 
Worn  out  slaves  were  sold  off,  like  old  cattle  from  a  farm. 
The  sick  were  often  exposed  and  left  to  die.  To 
enforce  industry,  the  hand,  the  lash,  and  the  rod,  were 
the  readiest  instruments.  Or  domestic  slaves  were 
sent  to  various,  workshops,  established  on  purpose 
to  tame  the  obstinate.  Sometimes  a  fork,  like  the 
yoke  on  a  goose,  was  put  round  their  necks ;  they 
were  placed  in  the  stocks  ;  they  were  chained.  Every 
expedient,  that  human  cruelty  could  devise,  was  em 
ployed  to  insure  industry  and  docility:  The  runaway, 
if  retaken,  was  branded,  or  crucified ;  or  punished  by 
the  loss  of  a  leg ;  or  compelled  to  fight  wild  beasts ;  or 
sold  for  a  gladiator.  The  slave  was  valued  only  as 
property,  and  it  was  a  question  for  ingenious  dispu 
tation,  whether,  in  order  to  lighten  a  vessel  in  a  storm 
at  sea,  a  good  horse  or  a  worthless  slave  should  be 
thrown  overboard. 

Slaves  occupied  every  station,  from  the  delegate 
superintending  and  enjoying  the  rich  man's  villa,  to 
the  meanest  office  of  menial  labor,  or  obsequious 
vice;  from  the  foster  mother  of  the  rich  man's 
child,  to  the  lowest  condition  of  degradation,  to  which 
woman  can  be  reduced.  The  public  slaves  handled 
the  oar  in  the  galleys,  or  labored  on  the  public  works. 
Some  were  lictors ;  some  were  jailers.  Executioners 
were  slaves ;  slaves  were  watchmen,  watermen,  and 
scavengers.  Slaves  regulated  the  rich  palace  in  the 


304  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

city ;  and  slaves  performed  all  the  drudgery  of  the 
farm.  Nor  was  it  unusual  to  teach  slaves  the  arts. 
Virgil  made  one  of  his  a  poet ;  and  Horace  himself 
was  the  son  of  a  freedman.  The  Merry  Andrew  was  a 
slave.  The  physician,  the  surgeon,  were  often  slaves. 
So  too  the  preceptor  and  the  pedagogue ;  the  reader 
and  the  stage  player ;  the  clerk  and  the  amanuensis ; 
the  buffoon  and  the  mummer ;  the  architect  and  the 
smith ;  the  weaver  and  the  shoemaker ;  the  undertaker 
and  the  bearer  of  the  bier ;  the  pantomime  and  the 
singer ;  the  rope-dancer  and  the  wrestler,  all  were 
bondmen.  The  armiger  or  squire  was  a  slave.  Not 
an  avocation,  connected  with  agriculture,  manufactures, 
or  public  amusements,  can  be  named,  but  it  was  the 
patrimony  of  slaves.  Slaves  engaged  in  commerce ; 
slaves  were  wholesale  merchants ;  slaves  were  retailers ; 
slaves  shaved  notes ;  and  the  managers  of  banks  were 
slaves. 

Educated  slaves  exercised  their  profession  for  the 
emolument  of  their  masters.  Their  value  varied  with 
their  health,  beauty,  or  accomplishments.  The  com 
mon  laborer  was  worth  from  seventy-five  to  one  hun 
dred  dollars,  the  usual  cost  of  a  negro  in  the  West 
Indies,  when  the  slave-trade  was  in  vogue.  A  good 
cook  was  worth  almost  any  sum.  An  accomplished 
play  actor  could  not  be  valued  at  less  than  $8,000.  A 
good  fool  was  cheap  at  less  than  $800.  Beauty  was  a 
fancy  article,  and  its  price  varied.  Mark  Antony  gave 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    305 

$8,000  for  a  pair  of  beautiful  youths ;  and  much  higher 
prices  have  been  paid.  About  as  much  was  given  for 
an  illustrious  grammarian.  A  handsome  actress  would 
bring  far  more ;  her  annual  salary  might  sometimes  be 
$13,000.  The  law  valued  a  physician  at  $240.  Lu- 
cullus,  having  once  obtained  an  immense  number  of 
prisoners  of  war,  sold  them  for  sixty-five  cents  a  head ; 
probably  the  lowest  price  for  which  a  lot  of  able-bodied 
men  was  ever  offered. 


v. 

Such  was  the  character  of  the  Italian  population, 
over  which  a  government  was  to  be  instituted,  at  the 
time  when  Cesar  with  his  army  approached  the  Rubi 
con.  In  the  contest  which  followed,  it  was  the  object 
of  Pompey  to  plunder,  to  devastate,  and  to  punish. 
"  Should  Pompey  be  successful,  not  one  single  tile  will 
be  safe  in  an  Italian  roof,"  says  Cicero ;  "  I  know  right 
well,  he  desires  a  government  like  that  of  Sylla."  There 
did  not  exist  any  armed  party  in  favor  of  a  democratic 
republic.  The  spirit  of  the  democracy  was  gone ;  and 
its  shade  only  moved  with  powerless  steps  through 
the  forum  and  the  temples,  which  had  once  been  the 
scenes'  of  its  glory. 

It  was  in  the  service  of  his  country  that  Cesar  car 
ried  his  eagles  beyond  the  Rubicon.  The  republican 
poet,  who  represents  Rome  rising  before  the  con- 
20 


306  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

queror  in  a  vision,  and  demanding  of  him  the  occasion 
of  his  appearance  in  arms  on  her  borders,  describes 
him  as  replying, 

"  Roma,  fave  cceptis !     Non  te  furialibus  armis 

Persequor;  en  adsum, — ubique  tuus." 
In  seasons  of  violence,  despotism  is  the  child  of 
anarchy.  Men  rush  to  any  strong  arm  for  protection. 
Such  despotism,  like  that  of  Cromwell  or  of  Napoleon, 
is  transitory.  Permanent  despotism  can  grow  only  out 
of  fixed  relations  of  society.  Julius  Cesar  was  a  great 
statesman,  not  less  than  a  great  soldier.  His  ambition 
was  in  every  thing  gratified  ;  the  noise  of  his  triumphs 
had  filled  the  shores  of  England,  the  marshes  of  Bel 
gium,  and  the  forests  of  Germany.  Any  political  dis 
tinction  was  within  his  reach.  He  was  childless ;  and 
therefore  his  pride  hardly  seemed  to  require  a  subver 
sion  of  the  Commonwealth.  And  yet,  with  all  this, 
he  perceived  that  the  continuance  of  popular  liberty 
was  impossible  in  the  actual  condition  of  the  Roman 
State.;  that  a  wasting,  corrupt,  and  most  oppressive 
aristocracy  was  preparing  to  assume  the  dominion  of 
the  world ;  that  this  aristocracy  threatened  ruin  to 
the  provinces,  perpetual  cruelty  to  the  slaves,  and 
hereditary  contempt  to  the  people.  Democracy  had 
expired ;  and  the  worst  form  of  aristocracy,  far  worse 
than  that  of  the  Venetian  nobles  of  a  later  day, 
could  be  prevented  only  by  a  monarchy.  Julius 
Cesar  resolved  on  the  establishment  of  a  monarchy; 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    307 

for  lie  saw,  that  a  monarchical  form  of  government  was 
the  only  one  which  would  endure  in  Rome.  Had  he 
possessed  the  virtues  of  Washington,  the  democracy  of 
Jefferson,  the  legislative  genius  of  Madison,  he  could 
not  have  changed  the  course  of  events.  The  condition 
of  the  Roman  population  demanded  monarchy.  This 
was  the  third  great  revolution  prepared  by  slavery,  and 
the  consequent  decay  of  the  people. 

Despotism,  in  the  regular  order  of  Divine  Provi 
dence,  is  the  punishment  of  a  nation  for  the  institution 
of  slavery,  and  is  the  consolation  or  the  cure  of  he 
reditary  bondage.  The  slave  wears  his  chains  with 
composure,  when  he  sees  his  owner  also  in  chains. 
The  laborer  felt  less  humiliation,  when  he  beheld  his 
master  cringing  at  the  feet  of  a  master.  The  despot 
has  no  interest  to  invent  charges  of  treason  against  any 
but  the  very  rich ;  the  peaceful  poor  man,  the  humble 
slave,  has  nothing  to  fear  from  his  rapacity.  When,  at 
a  later  day  in  Roman  history,  a  tyrant  emperor  made 
his  horse  a  consul,  the  slave  could  glory  in  the  hu 
miliation  of  his  owners ;  the  people  could  laugh  at  the 
degradation  of  their  oppressors ;  and  the  appointment, 
after  all,  was  probably  a  popular  one.  "  That  the  con 
dition  of  a  slave  is  better  under  an  arbitrary,  than 
under  a  free  government,  is  supported  by  the  history 
of  ah1  ages  and  nations."  It  is  common  to  say,  that 
the  democracy  introduces  despotism  and  a  strong 
executive.  It  is  true,  that  despotism  is  brought  in  by 
the  majority ;  it  is  true,  that  when  great  extremes  of 


308  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

fortune  exist,  it  is  the  clear  and  well-understood  interest 
of  the  rich  to  prevent  a  despotism.  But  it  is  false, 
that  despotism  is  the  child  of  democracy.  Despotism 
cannot  take  place  until  the  spirit  of  democracy  is  ex 
tinct.  When  by  the  progressive  increase  of  differences 
in  the  condition  of  men,  society  is  hopelessly  changed 
into  a  few  immensely  rich  and  the  many  indigent ; 
when  the  people  can,  from  their  humble  condition 
and  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  property,  no  longer  ex 
ercise  a  regular  influence  on  government ;  when  they  are 
bowed  under  the  yoke  of  a  few  wealthy  families,  then 
the  people  cure  the  evil  which  grew  out  of  the  ine 
quality  of  conditions,  by  pushing  that  inequality  to  the 
extreme ;  and,  in  order  to  put  down  an  insolent  and 
oppressive  aristocracy,  they,  by  a  spasmodic  effort, 
create,  or,  obeying  the  natural  course  of  events, 
submit  to  a  despotism.  Thus  the  aristocracy  brings 
on  the  unjust  inequalities  for  which  despotism  is  the 
remedy.  The  usurpations  of  a  strong  government, 
with. the  assent  of  the  people,  imply  previous  usur 
pations  in  the  aristocracy.  Witness  the  despotism  of 
Denmark,  established  by  the  people  for  their  protection 
against  the  nobility.  Witness  the  policy  of  Louis 
XIV.  and  his  predecessor ;  witness  Henry  VII.  and 
Henry  VIII. ,  in  England,  absolute  monarchs,  tolerated 
in  their  extravagant  usurpations,  that  so  the  power 
of  the  great  landed  aristocracy  might  be  restrained, 
and  the  authority  of  the  church  subjected.  Witness 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    309 

the  present  constitution  of  the  Russian  empire,  brought 
about,  in  like  manner,  by  the  act  of  the  nation,  to 
restrain  the  ambition  of  the  nobles. 

There  remained  no  mode  of  establishing  a  fixed 
government  in  Rome,  but  by  the  supremacy  of  one 
man.  In  Italy,  no  opposition  was  made  to  Cesar  on 
the  part  of  the  people  or  of  the  slaves,  but  of  the  aris 
tocracy  alone ;  and  they  could  offer  resistance  only 
in  the  remoter  subjected  districts,  with  the  aid  of  hire 
ling  troops,  sustained  by  the  revenues  of  the  provinces 
which  were  still  under  the  control  of  the  Senate.  The 
people  conferred  on  Cesar  all  the  power  which  he 
could  desire ;  he  was  created  dictator  for  a  year,  that 
he  might  subdue  his  enemies,  and  consul  for  five  years, 
that  he  might  confirm  his  authority.  The  inviolability 
of  his  person  was  secured  by  his  election  as  tribune 
for  life. 

What  would  have  been  the  policy  of  Julius  Cesar, 
cannot  be  safely  conjectured.  To  say  that  he  had  no 
plan  is  absurd ;  every  step  in  his  progress  was  marked 
by  consistency.  The  establishment  of  monarchy  was 
already  an  alterative  to  slavery.  Cesar  issued  an 
ordinance,  not  indeed  of  immediate  abolition,  but  com 
manding  that  one  third  part  of  the  labor  of  Italy  should 
be  performed  by  free  hands.  The  command  was  ren 
dered  inoperative  by  his  assassination,  the  greatest  mis 
fortune  that  could  have  happened  to  Rome.  For  who 
were  his  murderers  ?  Not  the  people ;  not  the  insur- 


310  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

gent  bondmen ;  but  a  portion  of  the  aristocracy,  to 
whom  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number 
was  a  matter  of  supreme  indifference. 

The  great  majority  of  the  conspirators  have  never 
found  a  eulogist.  Every  ancient  writer  speaks  of  them 
with  reprobation  and  contempt.  Cassius,  one  of  the 
chief  leaders,  was  notoriously  selfish,  violent,  and  dis 
gracefully  covetous,  not  to  say  dishonest.  He  is  uni 
versally  represented  as  envying  injustice  rather  than 
abhorring  it,  and  his  conduct  has  ever  been  ascribed  to 
personal  malevolence,  and  not  to  patriotism.  But 
Brutus  ! — History  never  manufactured  him  into  a 
hero,  till  he  made  himself  an  assassin.  Of  a  head 
strong,  unbridled  disposition,  he  displayed  coolness 
of  judgment  in  no  part  of  his  career.  It  was  his 
misfortune  to  have  been  the  son  of  an  abandoned 
woman,  and  to  have  been  bred  in  a  home,  which 
adultery  and  wantonness  had  defiled.  The  vices  of 
early  indulgence  may  be  palliated  by  his  youth  and  the 
licentiousness  of  his  time ;  but  Brutus,  while  yet  young, 
was  a  merciless  and  exorbitant  usurer,  at  the  rate*  of 
four  per  cent,  a  month,  or  forty-eight  per  cent,  a  year. 
When  his  debtors  grew  unable  to  pay,  he  obtained  for 
his  agent  an  appointment  to  a  military  post,  and  ex 
torted  his  claims  by  martial  law.  The  town  of 
Salarnis,  in  the  isle  of  Cyprus,  owed  him  money  on 
the  terms  we  have  mentioned.  He  caused  the  mem 
bers  of  its  bankrupt  municipal  government  to  be  con- 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    311 

fined  in  their  town-hall,  in  the  hope  that  hunger  would 
quicken  their  financial  skill ;  and  some  of  them  were 
starved  to  death.  Such  was  Brutus  at  that  ingenuous 
period  of  life,  when  benevolence  is  usually  most  active. 
He  hated  Pompey,  yet  after  deliberating,  he  joined 
the  party  of  that  leader,  and  remained  true  to  it,  so 
long  as  it  seemed  to  be  the  strongest ;  but  no  sooner 
was  the  battle  of  Pharsalia  won,  than  Brutus  gave  in 
his  adhesion  to  Cesar,  and  to  confer  a  value  on  his 
conversion,  he  betrayed  the  confidence  of  the  fugitive 
whose  cause  he  had  abandoned  !  In  the  plot  against 
Cesar,  Brutus  was  the  dupe  of  more  sagacious  men. 

Cesar  had  received  the  Senate  sitting ;  this  insult 
required  immediate  vengeance.  They  murdered  him, 
not  from  public  spirit,  but  from  mortified  vanity  and 
angry  discontent.  The  people,  who  had  been  pleased 
with  the  humiliation  of  their  oppressors,  were  indignant 
at  the  assassination,  and  the  assassins  themselves  had 
no  ulterior  plan. 

VI. 

Slavery,  by  the  gradual  extermination  of  free  labor 
and  an  industrious  self-relying  people,  had  poisoned 
the  Roman  State  to  the  marrow ;  and  though  the  con 
spirators  had  no  fixed  line  of  policy,  yet  the  condition 
of  the  population  of  Italy  led  immediately  to  mon 
archy.  The  young  Octavian  owed  his  elevation,  not  to 


312  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

his  talents,  but  to  the  state  of  the  times.  Popular  gov 
ernment  had  become  an  impossibility,  and  monarchy 
was  the  only  mode  of  restraining  the  rapine  of  the 
Senate. 

Slavery  prepared  the  way  for  Oriental  despotism  by 
encouraging  luxury.  The  genius  of  the  Romans  was 
inventive  ;  but  it  was  only  to  devise  new  pleasures  of 
the  senses.  The  retinue  of  servants  was  unexampled ; 
and  the  caprices  to  which  men  and  women  were  sub 
jected,  were  innumerable.  The  Roman  writers  are  so 
full  of  it,  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  draw  the  picture, 
which  would  indeed  represent  humanity  degraded  by 
the  subserviency  of  slaves,  and  by  the  artificial  desires 
and  vices  of  their  masters.  This  detestable  excess  ex 
tended  through  the  upper  class.  Women  ceased  to 
blush  for  vices  which,  in  other  times,  render  men  infa 
mous.  Beneficium  sexus  sui  vitiis  perdiderunt,  et  quia 
foeminam  exuerunt,  damnatae  sunt  morbis  virilibus. 
At  Rome,  the  gout  was  a  common  disease  in  the  cir 
cles  of  female  dissipation  and  fashion.  The  rage  of 
luxury  extended  also,  in  some  sort,  to  the  people. 
For  them,  tens  of  thousands  of  gladiators  were  sacri 
ficed  without  concern ;  for  them,  the  enslaved  Jews 
raised  the  gigantic  walls  of  the  Coliseum,  the  most 
splendid  monument  of  the  corruptness  of  human  na 
ture  ;  for  them,  navies  engaged  in  actual  contests ; 
and  the  sailors,  as  they  prepared  for  battle,  received 
only  an  AVETE,  on  their  way  to  death. 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    315 

In  like  manner,  the  effect  of  slavery  became  visible 
on  public  morals.  Among  the  slaves  there  was  no 
such  thing  as  the  sanctity  of  marriage ;  dissoluteness 
was  almost  as  general  as  the  class.  The  slave  was 
ready  to  assist  in  the  corruption  of  his  master's  family. 
The  virtues  of  self-denial  were  unknown.  But  the 
picture  of  Roman  immorality  is  too  gross  to  be  ex 
hibited.  Its  excess  can  be  estimated  from  the  extrav 
agance  of  the  reaction.  When  the  Christian  religion 
made  its  way  through  the  oppressed  classes  of  society, 
and  gained  strength  by  acquiring  the  affections  of  the 
miserable  whose  woes  it  solaced,  the  abandoned  man 
ners  of  the  cities  excited  the  reproof  of  fanaticism. 
When  domestic  life  had  almost  ceased  to  exist,  the 
universal  lewdness  could  be  checked  only  by  the  most  ex 
aggerated  eulogies  of  absolute  chastity.  Convents  and 
nunneries  grew  up,  at  the  time  when  more  than  half  the 
world  were  excluded  from  the  rites  of  marriage,  and  were 
condemned  by  the  laws  of  the  empire  to  promiscuous 
indulgence.  Vows  of  virginity  were  the  testimony 
which  religion  bore  against  the  enormities  of  the  age. 
Spotless  purity  could  alone  fitly  rebuke  the  shameless- 
ness  of  excess.  As  in  raging  diseases,  the  most  violent 
and  unnatural  remedies  need  to  be  applied  for  a  season, 
so  the  transports  of  enthusiasm  sometimes  appear  ne 
cessary  to  stay  the  infection  of  a  moral  pestilence. 
Thus  riot  produced  asceticism  ;  and  monks,  and  monk 
ish  eloquence,  and  monastic  vows  were  the  protest 
against  the  general  depravity  of  manners. 


314  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

The  gradual  decay  of  the  class  of  ingenuous  freemen 
had  been  a  conspicuous  result  of  slavery.  The  cor 
ruptions  of  licentiousness  spared  neither  sex ;  and  the 
consequence  was  so  certain,  that  it  was  not  long, 
before  the  majority  of  the  cohorts,  of  the  priesthood, 
of  the  tribes,  of  the  people,  nay  of  the  Senate  itself, 
came  to  consist  of  emancipated  slaves.  But  the  sons 
of  slaves  could  have  no  capacity  for  defending  freedom ; 
and  despotism  was  at  hand  when,  beside  the  sove 
reign,  there  were  few  who  were  not  bondmen  or  the 
children  of  bondmen. 

Rome  was  sufficiently  degraded,  when  the  makers 
of  an  emperor,  stumbling  upon  Claudius,  the  wisest 
fool  of  the  times,  proclaimed  him  the  master  of  the 
Roman  empire.  Slavery  now  enjoyed  its  triumph,  for 
a  slave  became  prime  minister.  lo  Saturnalia,  shout 
ed  the  cohorts,  as  Narcissus  attempted  to  address 
them.  But  the  consummation  of  evil  had  not  arrived. 
The  husband  of  Messalina  had,  naturally  enough,  taken 
up  a  prejudice  against  matrimony ;  the  governors  of 
the  weak  emperor,  who  managed  him  as  absolutely  as 
Buckingham  managed  James  I.,  insisted  upon  his  mar 
rying  Agrippina.  He  did  so ;  and  Agrippina,  assisted 
by  freedmen  and  slaves,  disinherited  his  son,  murdered 
her  husband,  and  placed  Nero  on  the  throne.  Slaves 
gave  Nero  the  purple. 

The  accession  of  Nero  is  the  epoch  of  the  virtual 
establishment  of  the  fourth  revolution.  The  forms  of 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    315 

ancient  Home  still  continued,  but  Nero  was  the  incar 
nation  of  depravity ;  the  very  name  by  which  men  are 
accustomed  to  express  the  fury  of  unrestrained  ma 
lignity.  Bad  as  he  was,  Nero  was  not  worse  than 
Rome.  She  had  but  her  due.  Nay,  when  he  died, 
the  rabble  and  the  slaves  crowned  his  statues  with  gar 
lands,  and  scattered  flowers  over  his  grave.  And  why 
not  ?  Nero  never  injured  the  rabble,  never  oppressed 
the  slave.  He  murdered  his  mother ;  his  brother ; 
his  wife ;  and  was  the  tyrant  of  the  wealthy ;  the 
terror  of  the  successful.  He  rendered  poverty  sweet, 
for  poverty  alone  was  secure ;  he  rendered  slavery 
tolerable,  for  slaves  alone,  or  slavish  men,  were  pro 
moted  to  power.  The  reign  of  Nero  was  the  golden 
reign  of  the  populace,  and  the  holiday  of  the  bondman. 
The  death  of  Gracchus  was  avenged  on  the  descendants 
of  his  murderers. 

Despotism  now  became  the  government  of  the  Ro 
man  empire.  Yet  there  was  such  a  vitality  even  in 
the  forms  of  liberty,  that  they  were  still  in  some  degree 
preserved.  .  Two  centuries  passed  away,  before  the  last 
vestiges  of  republican  simplicity  disappeared,  and  the 
Eastern  diadem  was  introduced  with  the  slavish  cus 
toms  of  the  East.  Up  to  the  reign  of  Diocletian,  a 
diadem  had  never  been  endured  in  Europe.  Hardly 
had  this  emblem  of  servility  become  tolerated,  when 
language  also  began  to  be  corrupted ;  and,  within  the 
course  of  another  century,  the  austere  purity  of  the 


316  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

Greek  and  Roman  tongues,  the  languages  of  Demos 
thenes  and  of  Gracchus,  became  for  the  first  time 
familiarized  to  the  forms  of  Oriental  adulation.  Your 
imperial  Highness,  your  Grace,  your  Excellency,  your 
Immensity,  your  Honor,  your  Majesty,  then  first 
became  current  in  the  European  world ;  men  grew 
ashamed  of  a  plain  name;  and  one  person  could  not 
address  another  without  following  the  custom  of  the 
Syrians,  and  calling  him  Rabbi,  Master. 

It  is  a  calumny  to  charge  the  devastation  of  Ita 
ly  upon  the  barbarians.  The  large  Roman  planta 
tions,  tilled  by  slave  labor,  were  its  ruin.  Verum 
confitentibus,  latifmidia  Italiam  perdidere.  The  care 
less  system  impoverished  the  soil,  and  wore  out  even 
the  rich  fields  of  Campania.  Large  districts  were 
left  waste ;  others  had  been  turned  into  pastures ;  and 
grazing  substituted  for  tillage.  The  average  crops 
hardly  ever  returned  a  fourfold  increase.  Nam  frumenta 
majore  quidem  parte  Italiae,  quando  cum  quarto  respon- 
derint,  vix  meminisse possumus.  This  is  the  confession 
of  the  eulogist  and  the  teacher  of  agriculture.  Italy 
was  naturally  a  very  fertile  country ;  but  slave  labor 
could  hardly  wring  from  it  a  return  one  half,  or  even 
one  third  so  great,  as  free  labor  gets  from  the  hills  and 
vales  of  New  England.  Eor  centuries  it  did  not  pro 
duce  corn  enough  to  meet  the  wants  of  its  inhabitants. 
Rome  was  chiefly  supplied  from  Sicily  and  Africa,  and 
the  largest  number  of  its  inhabitants  had  for  centuries 
been  fed  from  the  public  magazines. 


THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  ROMAN  PEOPLE.    317 

The  Barbarians  did  not  ruin  Italy.  The  Romans 
themselves  ruined  it.  Slavery  had  effected  the  de 
cline  of  the  Roman  people,  and  had  wasted  the  land, 
before  a  Scythian  or  a  Scandinavian  had  crossed  the 
Alps. 

When  Alaric  led  the  Goths  into  Italy,  even  after 
the  conquest  of  Rome,  he  saw  that  he  could  not  sus 
tain  his  army  in  the  beautiful  but  desert  territory,  unless 
he  could  also  conquer  Sicily  and  Africa,  whence  alone 
daily  bread  could  be  obtained.  His  successor  was, 
therefore,  easily  persuaded  to  abandon  the  unpro 
ductive  region,  and  invade  the  happier  France. 

Attila  had  no  other  purpose,  than  a  roving  pilgrim 
age  after  booty ;  and  as  his  cupidity  was  little  excited, 
and  the  climate  was  ungenial,  the  unlettered  Calnfack 
was  overawed  by  the  Roman  priesthood,  and  diverted 
from  indigent  Italy  to  the  more  prosperous  North. 
Rome  still  remained  an  object  for  plunderers,  but  none 
of  the  barbarians  were  tempted  to  make  Italy  the  seat 
of  empire,  or  Rome  a  metropolis.  Slavery  had  de 
stroyed  the*  democracy,  had  destroyed  the  aristocracy, 
had  destroyed  the  empire ;  and  at  last  it  left  the  traces 
of  its  ruinous  power  deeply  furrowed  on  the  face  of 
nature  herself. 


RUSSIA. 

THE  origin  of  the  Russian  nation  is  involved  in  the 
obscurity  which  hangs  over  most  events  belonging  to  a 
remote  antiquity.  Even  the  question,  to  what  race  of 
men  the  first  inhabitants  of  European  Scythia  or  Sar- 
matia  belonged,  is  one  which  the  investigations  of 
modern  inquirers  have  never  been  able  to  answer. 
"  Of  Russia,  strictly  so  called,"  says  the  indefatigable 
Schlozer,  "the  ancients,  from  Herodotus  to  Charle 
magne,  knew  as  little  as  of  Otaheite."  Sarmatia  and 
Scythia  are  vague  appellations,  applied  to  unknown  re 
gions  in  the  North. 

It  is  therefore  impossible  for  the  historian  to 
derive  the  Russians  from  any  race  of  the  continent  of 
Asia.  Whatever  may  have  taken  place  in  the  period, 
to  which  their  annals  do  not  ascend,  and  respecting 
which  no  clear  allusions  are  to  be  found  in  foreign  his 
torians,  to  us  they  appear  in  the  light  of  aboriginal  in 
habitants  of  the  provinces  which  now  constitute  the 
centre  of  the  empire.  From  the  first  they  present 


RUSSIA.  319 

themselves  with  a  language  and  character  of  their  own ; 
they  have  no  community  with  the  Tartars,  or  with  the 
Goths ;  they  were  distinct  from  the  Huns,  though  they 
may  have  served  under  the  banners  of  Attila,  in  the 
time  of  his  glory,  and  may  afterwards  have  received 
among  themselves  the  fragments  of  a  nation,  whose 
season  of  power  had  been  so  short,  and  yet  so  de 
structive.  The  remains  or  the  exiles  of  other  nations 
are  to  be  found  in  the  central  provinces  of  Russia ;  but 
the  emigrants  seem  never  to  have  even  impaired  the 
nationality  of  the  original  inhabitants  ;  but  rather  to 
have  become  incorporated  with  them  to  the  entire  loss 
of  their  own  distinctive  character.  The  Russian,  there 
fore,  is  of  all  the  present  European  peoples  the  one 
which  may  lay  the  best  grounded  claims  to  antiquity 
of  residence  in  its  present  abodes.  In  the  darkness  of 
ancient  centuries,  extended  over  vast  plains,  into  which 
the  genius  of  Greece  and  the  arms  of  Rome  never  pene 
trated,  this  people  were  slowly  ripening  to  nationality 
during  the  ages  of  classic  splendor,  when  Solon  gave 
laws  to  the  Athenians,  and  Rome  strove  after  principles 
of  public  justice  and  liberty.  If  the  Rhoxolani  or 
Rhossolani  were  a  branch  of  them,  they  were  not 
wholly  unknown  during  the  wars  of  Mithridates ; 
and  in  the  period  of  the  Roman  emperors  they  some 
times  visited  the  mouths  of  the  Danube,  sometimes 
scaled  the  Carpathian  mountains  ;  and  the  province  of 
Mo3sia  was  not  safe  against  their  precipitate  and  care 
less  valor. 


320  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

Till  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century,  it  is  on  all 
hands  agreed  that  the  history  of  the  Russians  has  no 
authenticity.  But  even  the  earliest  season  in  which 
some  facts  appear  supported  by  various  testimony,  is 
involved  in  an  uncertainty,  which  nothing  but  the  most 
careful  criticism  can  in  any  degree  dispel.  The  ori 
ginal  manuscript  of  the  chronicles  of  Nestor  is  no  longer 
to  be  found ;  and  its  copies  have  undergone  so  many 
alterations  and  interpolations,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
separate  the  genuine  from  the  false.  Besides,  who  was 
this  monk  of  the  eleventh  century,  to  whom  Providence 
has  conceded  the  singular  honor  of  being  almost  the 
sole  depositary  of  the  early  history  of  his  nation  ? 
The  accounts  of  the  monk  of  Kiew  coincide  in  many 
things  with  those  of  the  Byzantine  historians.  Did  he, 
then,  draw  his  information  exclusively  from  original 
sources,  or  was  he  guided  in  his  inquiries  by  the 
writers  of  the  eastern  empire  ?  Could  there  have  been 
any  written  document  in  existence  among  the  Russians 
on  which  he  may  have  founded  his  narrative  ?  Does 
not  the  time  which  intervened  between  the  age  of 
Nestor  and  that  assigned  for  the  foundation  of  the 
Russian  empire,  leave  room  to  doubt  the  security  of 
oral  tradition  ?  And  could  a  monk  of  Kiew  be  accu 
rately  informed  of  what  passed  at  Novgorod  ?  It  is 
evident,  that  Nestor  was  not  unacquainted  with  foreign 
literature.  Are  we  to  infer  from  it,  that  he  was  the  bet 
ter  able  to  register  the  course  of  events  ?  Or  shall  we 


,        RUSSIA.  321 

suppose  that  -he  was  led  by  the  influence  of  foreign 
forms  to  give  to  Russian  history  an  aspect  of  greater 
certainty  than  belonged  to  it  ?  The  accounts  of  Nes 
tor,  therefore,  while  they  have  an  uncertain  value  for 
the  whole  period  through  which  they  extend,  are  of 
less  questionable  credibility  in  all  that  relates  to  the 
times  immediately  preceding  his  own. 

Tradition  traces  the  foundation  of  Kiew  to  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century ;  the  historians  of  the 
eastern  empire,  not  less  than  Nestor,  have  preserved 
the  accounts  of  an  expedition,  which  is  said  to  have 
been  made  by  its  princes  against  Constantinople  in  the 
ninth  century.  Nor  does  the  commercial  republic  of 
Novgorod  lay  claim  to  a  less  ancient  existence.  Estab 
lished  on  the  banks  of  the  Volchova  and  not  far  from 
Lake  Ilmen,  its  situation  explains  its  commerce  with 
the  North  along  the  coasts  of  the  Baltic  ;  and  its  mer 
chants  exchanged  at  Constantinople  their  furs  and 
honey  and  wax,  the  produce  of  their  fisheries,  and 
perhaps  also  slaves,  for  the  wines  and  cloths  of  Grecian 
manufacture.  The  power  and  the  wealth  of  the  repub 
lic  were  conspicuous  even  in  these  earliest  times. 
Their  successors  reduced  many  of  their  neighbors 
to  subjection  ;  and  of  the  surrounding  nations,  whom 
they  inspired  with  terror,  they  proudly  demanded — 
"  Who  will  dare  to  attack  God  and  the  great  Nov 
gorod  ?  " 

But  a  change  was  impending,  which  seems  to  have 
21 


322  STUDIES    IN    HISTQET. 

proceeded  from  those  domestic  grievances  and  defects 
which  are  the  result  of  age.  What  an  idea  of  the  an 
tiquity  of  the  Russian  nation  do  we  thus  receive  ?  Its 
first  distinct  historical  celebrity  is  connected  with  the 
downfall  of  a  republican  state ;  the  new  dynasty  of 
princes  elevated  its  grandeur  on  the  ruins  of  liberty. 
It  is  said  that  in  some  of  the  oldest  temples  of  Egypt, 
the  materials  of  the  fabrics  which  are  now  standing 
show  signs  of  having  been  previously  used,  so  that  the 
oldest  buildings  of  the  oldest  civilized  country  are  con 
structed  of  ruins  ;  in  like  manner  the  history  of  modern 
Russia  begins  with  the  subversion  of  an  ancient  system 
by  a  domestic  revolution. 

The  constitution  of  Novgorod  is  not  known ;  but 
prosperity  produced  divisions,  and  divisions  terminated 
in  weakness.  The  Varagians,  the  pirates  of  the  Baltic, 
men  who  seem  rather  to  have  been  united  by  common 
habits  than  by  common  descent,  a  people  numerous 
and  warlike,  attacked  the  republic  from  the  north.  At 
the  same  time  the  Sclavonian  tribes  of  the  south  saw 
then*  liberties  endangered  by  the  Khozares,  who  were 
advancing  from  the  shores  of  the  Euxine.  The  citizens 
of  Novgorod,  being  thus  reduced  to  a  state  of  danger 
and  distress,  voluntarily  yielded  up  their  liberties  to 
foreign  masters.  A  solemn  deputation  was  sent  to  the 
sea-coast,  and  Riurick,  or  Rurik,  with  his  two  brothers 
and  a  large  train  of  countrymen,  came  to  rescue  the 
Russian  provinces  from  foreign  invasion,  and  lay  the 


RUSSIA.  323 

foundations  of  an  empire,  which  even  yet  does  not  seem 
to  have  reached  its  limits. 

It  was  in  862,  or  more  probably  in  852  (for  Rus 
sian  chronology  has  little  certainty  before  the  year  879), 
that  the  Russian  throne  was  established.  The  history 
of  the  kingdom  of  France  dates  from  843 ;  but  the 
reign  of  Hugh  Capet  dates  only  from  987.  England 
was  not  united  under  one  sovereign  till  827.  The 
glory  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg  reaches  no  further  than 
1232  ;  there  was  not  even  a  duchy  of  Austria  till  1156. 
The  Prussian  monarchy  is  but  of  yesterday.  Accord 
ing  to  ancient  chronicles,  and  the  indirect  evidence 
of  the  Greek  historians,  the  Russian  throne  extends 
almost  as  far  into  the  middle  ages,  as  the  establishment 
of  the  French  kingdom,  or  the  union  of  the  Heptarchy 
of  England ;  while  it  surpasses  in  antiquity  almost 
every  other  existing  government  in  Europe. 

With  respect  to  the  earliest  Russian  dynasty,  it 
may  be  well  to  separate  the  doubtful  from  the  certain. 
That  a  republic  should  invite  three  brothers  to  anni 
hilate  its  liberties  and  reign  with  unmitigated  sovereign 
ty  is  improbable,  though  not  absolutely  without  exam 
ple.  It  cannot  be  decided,  nor  is  it  of  the  least  mo 
ment  for  the  subsequent  events  in  Russian  history  to 
decide,  to  what  nation  the  family  of  Rurik  originally 
belonged.,  Nestor  says  they  came  from  the  north.  In 
that  case  they  were  kindred  with  the  Normans,  perhaps 
were  Swedes.  That  with  Rurik  two  brothers  should 


324  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

have  come  also  and  established  principalities,  should 
have  died  within  two  years  and  thus  left  Rurik  lord 
of  a  vast  and  undivided  territory,  is  not  impossible,  yet 
in  itself  not  natural.  That  some  nobles  of  his  retinue 
should  have  gained  of  him  permission  to  descend  the 
Dnieper  and  attack  Constantinople,  and  should  have 
appeared  before  that  city  with  two  hundred  vessels,  is 
inconsistent  with  the  rest  of  the  narration.  The  infer 
ence  is  therefore  forced  upon  the  inquirer,  that  the  Roses 
of  the  Greeks  were  not  the  Russians  of  history.  The 
points  on  which  reliance  may  be  placed,  are  simple  and 
sufficient.  In  the  course  of  the  ninth  century  the 
Sclavonian  tribes  in  the  heart  of  Russia  were  united 
under  one  sovereign ;  their  dominion  gradually  ex 
tended  to  Kiew;  the  name  of  Russians,  which  had 
long  existed,  became  a  general  appellation  ;  and  finally, 
the  family  which  traces  its  origin  from  Rurik  was 
the  ruling  dynasty  of  Russia  for  more  than  seven  hun 
dred  years. 

Russia  forms  a  connecting  link  between  ancient 
and  modern  history.  France,  Spain,  and  England, 
were  all  conquered,  and  adopted  the  manners,  the  dia 
lect,  and  the  learning  of  their  conquerors.  In  the 
heart  of  Germany,  the  Teutonic  race  preserved  itself 
free  from  the  loss  of  its  language  and  its  nationality, 
Have  not  the  nations  of  Teutonic  descent  proved,  by 
the  results  of  their  influence  on  human  events  and  in 
telligence,  that,  as  a  mercy  and  a  benefit  to  the  world, 


RUSSIA.  325 

their  name  and  nation  were  preserved  unsubdued  and 
unmixed  ?  Have  not  some  of  the  most  valuable  princi 
ples  in  learning,  in  philosophy,  in  religion,  and,  we  may 
add,  in  the  imaginative  arts,  been  the  results  of  their  in 
dependence  ?  Though  it  was  long  before  they  learned  to 
unite  the  elegances  of  other  times  with  native  dignity 
and  the  acquisitions  of  knowledge,  yet  have  they  not  at 
last  shown  themselves  strong  in  the  depth  of  sentiment, 
in  earnest  truth,  and  moral  sublimity  ?  And  is  it  going 
too  far  to  hope,  that  one  branch  of  the  great  Sclavonic 
family  is  yet  to  develop  an  independent  character ;  that 
a  nation,  which  has  its  unity  and  identity  confirmed  and 
endeared  by  a  community'  of  language,  of  religious 
faith,  and  of  historical  recollections, — a  nation  placed  on 
lands  which  join  the  Caspian  and  the  White  Sea,  the 
Baltic,  and  the  most  important  basin  of  the  Mediter 
ranean, — a  nation  occupying  a  soil  intersected  by  the 
largest  rivers  of  Europe,  and  offering  great  and  increas 
ing  -facilities  of  navigation  by  canals, — a  nation  which 
reaches  from  the  country  of  the  vine  and  olive,  to  the 
latitudes  of  perpetual  frost,  and  thus  unites  within 
itself  all  the  conditions  of  national  strength,  commercial 
independence,  and  intellectual  energy,— is  it  unreason 
able  to  trust  that  the  future  course  of  such  a  nation  is 
to  be  marked  by  results  favorable  to  the  best  interests 
of  humanity  ?  That  its  copious  and  harmonious  lan 
guage  is  to  become  the  voice  of  the  muses,  and  the 
instrument  of  science  ?  That  culture  is  to  find  a  way 


326  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

into  its  healthful  and  fertile  valleys,  and  that  religion  and 
civil  liberty  are  eventually  to  win  new  trophies  in  these 
immense  regions  of  ancient  darkness  ?  The  Russian  em 
pire,  like  the  United  States,  if  comparatively  weak  for 
purposes  of  foreign  aggression,  is  invincible  within  itself. 
Its  soil  is  capable  of  sustaining,  without  supposing  an 
uncommon  degree  of  culture,  a  population  of  a  hundred 
and  fifty  millions ;  the  most  vigorous  government  may 
find  enough  to  do  in  controlling  the  members  of  this 
vast  body  politic ;  the  most  ambitious  can  have  with 
in  its  limits  the  means  of  gratifying  an  unwearied 
activity.  It  already  covers  a  vaster  extent  of  territory 
than  any  which  the  annals  of  the  world  commemo 
rate,  except  it  be  the  transitory  dominion  of  the 
Zingis.  Where  every  motive  of  philanthropy,  and  of 
the  true  passion  for  glory,  impels  to  the  diffusion  of 
sciences  and  arts,  the  advancement  of  the  purposes 
of  peace  and  intelligence,  the  full  display  of  the  great 
and  good  qualities  which  exist  in  the  ancient  race  that 
has  held  the  north  from  immemorial  ages,  it  seems  not 
an  unreasonable  expectation,  that  the  voice  of  humanity 
and  of  justice  will  be  heard.  It  may  be  within  the 
purposes  of  a  controlling  Providence,  that  the  agency 
of  the  Russian  empire  shall  spread  respect  for  Chris 
tianity  through  the  hearts  of  idolatrous  nations.  Its 
emissaries  have  already  reared  the  temples  of  a  purer 
religion  among  the  Tartar  states  of  Siberia,  and  planted 
the  cross  on  the  mountains  of  Kamschatka.  The 


RUSSIA.  327 

traveller,  as  lie  wanders  towards  the  pole,  in  latitudes 
where  corn  is  ripened  in  a  day  (a  day  that  extends 
over, weeks),  hears  the  sounds,  and  sees  the  character 
of  a  Christian  worship ;  and  monasteries  are  estab 
lished  even  in  the  remote  isles  of  the  White  Sea :  the 
shores  of  the  Caspian  have  ceased  to  acknowledge  a 
Mahometan  master,  and  the  ancient  fable  of  the 
prisoner  of  Mount  Caucasus,  the  purest  and  most 
sublime  invention  of  ancient  mythology,  has  been  but 
the  faint  shadowing  forth  of  more  glorious  truths, 
which  are  making  themselves  felt  and  acknowledged 
in  the  very  heart  of  the  mysterious  land  of  classic 
superstition. 

But  if,  on  the  contrary,  the  form  of  autocracy 
should  prove  incompatible  with  the  diffusion  of  know 
ledge,  and  if  Russia  should  fail  to  attain  to  a  govern 
ment  insuring  the  free  development  of  national  energy 
and  the  strict  accountability  of  public  servants,  there 
may  ensue  a  new  migration  of  the  nations  and  a 
subversion  of  ancient  order,  like  the  terrible  devas 
tations  of  the  great  destroyer  of  the  middle  ages 
What  force  could  the  western  nations  oppose  to  the 
gradual  advancement  of  Russian  supremacy  ?  The 
capital  of  Poland  is  nearly  the  centre  of  Europe,  and 
it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Russians ;  Austria  has  posses 
sions  which  are  said  to.  sigh  for  the  yoke  of  Sclavonic 
masters,  rather  than  yield  allegiance  to  the  house  of 
Hapsburg ;  Prussia  holds  the  ports  through '  which 


328  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

provinces  of  the  mighty  state  have  their  intercourse 
with  the  sea ;  and  probably  the  prosperity  of  both 
parts  would  be  promoted  by  a  union  of  the  seaports  and 
the  interior  under  the  stronger  government.  The 
Wallachians,  the  Moldavians,  are  of  the  same  religious 
faith.  It  is  not  many  years  since  Europe  shrieked  at 
the  aggressions  on  Poland ;  yet  now  a  large  part  of  the 
old  Polish  provinces  rejoice  in  being  re-united  to  their 
ancient  brethren ;  the  heart  of  the  kingdom,  the  grand 
duchy  of  Warsaw,  has  not  for  centuries  enjoyed  such 
tranquillity,  such  security,  or  such  general  prosperity, 
as  at  present ;  the  Polish  provinces  of  Prussia  lament 
their  separation  from  their  fellow-citizens  of  the  old 
republic.  Where,  then,  is  the  barrier  against  Russia 
on  her  frontiers  ?  On  the  north,  she  extends  to  the 
poles,  and  the  conquest  of  Finland  has  made  her  inac 
cessible  from  the  Scandinavian  peninsula ;  on  the  east, 
her  limit  is  the  Pacific,  unless,  indeed,  we  take  into 
account  her  possessions  in  North  America.  On  the 
south,  she  is  herself  most  formidable  to  every  one  of 
her  neighbors.  Caucasian  countries  and  the  keys  of 
Persia  are  already  hers ;  no  vessels  sail  on  the  Cas 
pian  but  by  her  permission;  she  holds  more  than 
half  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea ;  the  Turkish  power 
may  yet  shine  forth  in  temporary  lustre  before  it 
expires;  but  religious  and  national  enthusiasm,  and 
personal  bravery,  cannot  resist  the  influence  of  causes 
which  are  constantly  operating,  and  always  increasing 


RUSSIA.  329 

m  strength.  Thus,  Russia,  inaccessible  on  the  south, 
east,  and  north,  stands  in  a  menacing  attitude  towards 
the  south-east  and  the  west  of  Europe.  Did  not  Peter 
the  Great  wish  to  become  a  state  of  the  German 
empire  ?  Has  not  a  part  of  the  Baltic  coast  belong 
ing  to  Prussia  been  repeatedly  grasped  at  ?  Did  not 
the  wise,  the  temperate,  the  forbearing  Alexander, 
accept  from  his  suffering  and  prostrate  ally  a  portion 
of  coveted  territory  in  Galicia?  Did  he  not,  even 
after  the  peace  of  Tilsit,  partake  in  the  spoils  of  his 
unhappy  associate  in  arms?  The  memory  of  these 
things  has  not  perished ;  has  justice  intrenched  herself 
in  firmer  sanctuaries  ?  Has  the  consciousness  of  moral 
obligation  so  far  gained  force,  that  the  appearance 
of  a  tyrant  on  a  powerful  throne  would  no  longer 
perplex  monarchs  with  a  fear  of  change  ? 

The  statesman  that  believes  in  human  virtue,  may 
still  seek  for  a  guarantee  of  right  in  permanent  interests, 
and  in  sufficient  strength  to  repel  unjust  aggressions. 
It  is  painful  to  suppose  that  the  balance  of  power  in 
the  north  is  so  far  destroyed,  that  the  strongest  hope 
of  security  lies  in  the  wisdom  of  governments,  the  per 
sonal  virtues  of  sovereigns,  and  the  cordial  union  of  the 
weaker  nations. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  Russian  empire  is  a  huge 
mass,  which  will  of  itself  fall  asunder.  And  why  will 
it  fall  asunder  ?  Is  there  not  the  tie  of  kindred  in  the 
great  nucleus  of  the  empire  ?  Is  not  the  whole  well 


330  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY 

annealed  and  firmly  joined?  Is  it  not  cut  off  and 
separated  from  trie  rest  of  Christendom  by  its  peculiar 
church  discipline  ?  Is  it  not  one  and  undivided  by  its 
descent  ?  Is  it  not  bound  together  by  having  the  same 
military  heroes,  the  same  saints,  the  same  recollections, 
civil  and  sacred?  Next  to  France,  it  is  of  ah1  the  states 
of  Europe  the  one  which  is  safest  against  division. 
How  much  more  secure  in  its  unity  is  Russia  than 
Austria,  which  yet  is  secure  except  from  some  general 
convulsion.  Of  the  Poles,  the  Russians,  flie  Hun 
garians,  the  Bohemians,  the  Germans,  the  Illyrians, 
and  the  Italians,  which  by  their  motley  union  con 
stitute  the  ill-assorted  mosaic  of  the  great  central 
sovereignty,  how  many  at  present  dislike  the  Austrian 
supremacy  !  Will  Hungary  submit  to  be  a  dependency 
on  a  country  of  far  less  natural  resources  ?  Will  the 
beautiful  and  fertile  Bohemia  consent  to  the  anni 
hilation  of  its  language,  its  national  laws  and  con 
stitutions,  its  time-hallowed  liberties  ?  Will  Russians 
prefer  the  sway  of  a  foreign  power  to  sharing  the  glory 
of  their  kindred  ?  Will  Poles  desire  to  remain  divided 
from  Poles  ?  Prussia  labors  under  infinitely  greater 
danger  of  dismemberment  than  Russia.  The  idea, 
that  Russia  will  of  itself  break  in  pieces,  is  unfounded 
in  the  history  or  the  character  of  the  component  parts 
of  that  empire. 

But  still  it  is  so  vast,  so  unwieldy  ! — And  is  it 
more  easy  to  tear  a  member  from  a  leviathan  than  a 


RUSSIA.  331 

fly?  Are  the  limbs  of  a  beast  less  firmly  knit, 
because  they  are  huge  and  massive  ?  It  is  a  clear 
lesson  of  history  that  large  states  hold  together, 
long  after  wisdom  has  departed  from,  the  councils  of 
their  governors.  The  Roman  empire  never  fell  till  it 
was  shaken  from  abroad.  The  Greek  empire  lasted  a 
thousand  years  longer,  and  would,  in  all  probability, 
have  lasted  to  this  day,  had  it  not  received  an  irresist 
ible  shock  from  a  nation  which  as  yet  had  no  home. 
Now  the  danger  which  is  said  to  hang  over  Russia  is 
solely  from  within  itself. 

The  history  of  the  future  cannot  be  read  in  the  ex 
perience  of  the  past.  We  may  trust  that  the  new 
relations,  which  are  rising  in  the  world,  will  yet  lead  to 
a  balance  of  power,  dependent  on  the  moral  force  of 
intelligence.  We  can  but  hope  that  a  bright  and 
peaceful  futurity  awaits  a  government,  on  which  de 
pends  directly  the  happiness  of  sixty  millions  of  men,  a 
fifteenth  part  of  the  human  race  ;  a  government  which 
holds  under  its  sway  a  large  portion  of  the  whole 
habitable  globe ;  a  government  whose  soil  is  sus 
ceptible  of  infinite  improvements,  and  whose  popu 
lation  is  but  just  beginning  to  bear  some  reasonable 
proportion  to  its  natural  abundance.  The  voice  of 
Sclavonic  poetry  has  already  been  heard,  and  the 
lessons  of  the  Russian  bards  are  full  of  the  noblest 
moral  truths.  The  Russian  press  is  active.  Works 
on  domestic  history  are  multiplying.  The  spirit  of  the 


332  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

nation  is  aroused  by  the  recollections  which  go  back  for 
so  many  centuries.  The  pride  of  national  feeling  is 
deep  and  strong,  and  arts  and  letters  are  making  their 
way  into  the  heart  of  a  country  which  from  its  earliest 
ages  has  possessed  an  aptitude  for  learning. 

Nor  should  it  be  left  out  of  view,  that  while  the 
general  administration  is  autocratic,  the  municipal  reg 
ulations  are  free ;  that  local  customs,  constitutions,  and 
religious  peculiarities,  are  preserved ;  and  that  while 
there  is  no  legitimate  guarantee  of  civil  liberty,  and  no 
exact  limit  to  check  the  infringement  of  the  imperial 
authority  on  particular  privileges,  yet  practically  the 
local  institutions  are  respected ;  and  in  an  autocracy, 
of  which  the  territory  is  immense,  the  hand  of  the 
sovereign  is  not  felt  in  its  rudeness  except  in  his 
personal  vicinity.  It  is  in  a  small  kingdom  that 
a  tyrant  is  the  most  dreaded  monster.  In  a  large 
state  the  personal  vices  of  the  sovereign  extend  in 
their  direct  influence  hardly  beyond  his  immediate 
train. 

They  who  limit  their  attention  in  Russian  annals  to 
anecdotes  which  illustrate  the  debauchery  of  the  court, 
the  ignorance  of  the  nobles,  or  the  superstitions  of  the 
vulgar,  close  their  eyes  on  one  of  the  greatest  specta 
cles.  The  reception  of  the  Russians  into  the  pale  of 
civilized  Christendom  forms  an  epoch  in  civilization,  so 
wide  are  its  influences,  so  powerful,  grand,  and  benefi 
cent  the  consequences  to  which  it  has  led  and  may 


RUSSIA.  333 

lead.  How  different  would  have  been  the  future  of 
the  world  if  the  Russian  state  with  its  present  power 
had  adopted  the  manners  and  the  religion  of  the  east  ? 
What  safety  would  there  now  be  to  Christian  Europe  ? 
What  increased  dangers  would  not  hang  over  its  liber 
ties?  He  that  can  neglect  such  results  in  the  de 
lineation  of  strange  and  uncouth  manners,  or  in  the 
scandalous  chronicles  of  the  licentiousness  of  an  im 
moral  court,  gives  up  the  contemplation  of  the  great 
revolutions  in  national  destinies,  to  the  unworthy  office 
of  analyzing  the  vices  of  individual  profligates.  One 
of  the  noblest  branches  of  knowledge,  the  history  of 
nations,  loses  its  dignity  and  value. 


334  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 


THE  WARS   OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY. 

I. 

SHORTLY  before  the  discovery  of  America,  the  Rus 
sian  nation  began  to  renew  its  glory.  The  victories 
of  Tamerlane,  by  weakening  the  enemies  of  the  Grand 
Prince  of  Moscow,  had  prepared  the  way  for  his  suc 
cessful  refusal  to  send  further  tribute  to  the  Golden 
Horde ;  and  the  great  mass  of  Russian  strength,  reviv 
ing  after  a  servitude  of  almost  two  and  a  half  centuries, 
made  conquests  in  every  direction,  under  three  suc 
cessive  princes  of  the  house  of  Rurik. 

Eor  fifteen  years  of  his  reign,  Ivan  the  Great  had 
paid  tribute  to  the  Tartars  ;  but  in  the  year  1492,  his 
power  was  firmly  established  as  an  independent  prince. 
Some  Russian  merchants  had  been  plundered  by  the 
Turks  of  Caffa.  Ivan  expostulated  in  a  letter  to  Bajazet. 
"  Whence  arise  these  acts  of  violence  ?  Are  you  aware 
of  them,  or  are  you  not  ?  One  word  more :  Mahomet, 
your  father,  was  a  great  prince ;  he  designed  to  send 
ambassadors  to  compliment  me ;  God  opposed  the  exe 
cution  of  this  project.  Why  should  we  not  now  see 
the  accomplishment  of  it  ?  "  And  in  1498,  the  ambas- 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  335 

sador  of  the  Grand  Duke  (the  title  of  Czar  had  not  yet 
been  assumedj  was  charged  "  to  compliment  the  Sul 
tan  standing,  and  not  on  his  knees ;  to  address  his 
speech  only  to  that  sovereign  himself,  and  to  yield  pre 
cedence  to  no  other  ambassador ;  and  not  in  any  man 
ner  to  compromise  the  dignity  of  his  master."  The 
Russians,  for  another  half  century,  remained  unknown 
to  the  western  kingdoms  of  Europe.  Even  after  their 
conquests  embraced  Kazan  and  Lapland,  they  had  no 
maritime  intercourse  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 

It  is  our  present  purpose  briefly  to  trace  the  origin, 
the  progress,  and  the  political  results  of  hostilities  be 
tween  the  Ottoman  and  the  Muscovite  empires.  The 
first  rencounter  of  the  Turks  and  Russians  in  a  field  of 
battle  is  assigned  by  Karamsin  to  the  year  1541,  on 
occasion  of  resistance  shown  to  Sahib  Gherai  on  the 
banks  of  the  Oka.  "There,"  says  the  Russian  his 
torian,  "we  for  the  first  time  beheld  Ottoman  tro 
phies  in  our  hands."  But  Von  Hammer  explains,  that 
the  trophies  were  those  of  a  Tartar  Khan,  and  not 
of  Turks. 

In  the  year  1553,  the  English  sent  forth  three  ships 
for  the  discovery  of  a  Northeastern  passage  to  Cathay 
or  China.  Two  of  them  were  wrecked;  the  third, 
commanded  by  Richard  Chancellor,  proceeded  to  "  an 
unknown  part  of  the  world,"  and  reached  a  place  where 
there  was  "  no  night  at  all,  but  a  continual  light  and 
brightness  of  the  sun  shining  clearly  upon  the  huge 


336  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

and  mighty  sea."  At  length  they  came  to  a  bay,  and 
the  month  of  the  Dwina,  and  report  hating  announced 
them  to  the  terrified  natives  as  men  of  "a  strange 
nation,  of  singular  gentleness  and  courtesy,"  Chancellor 
was  able  to  travel  into  the  interior.  He  found  that 
the  country  was  called  Russia,  or  Muscovy,  and  that 
Ivan  Vassilievitch  II.  "ruled  and  governed  far  and 
wide."  This  was  "  the  discovery  of  Russia,"  of 
which  the  fame  spread  through  Spain  the  belief  "  of  a 
discovery  of  New  Indies,"  and  in  England  gave  imme 
diate  impulse  to  mercantile  adventure ;  so  completely 
had  Russia  been  withdrawn  from  the  eye  of  the  rest  of 
Europe,  just  as  she  was  about  to  enter  on  a  career  of 
splendid,  permanent,  and  increasing  conquest. 

About  the  time  that  accident  opened  to  the  English 
merchants  the  avenue  of  Archangel,  the  Ottoman 
empire  had  attained  its  height  under  the  sway  of 
Solyman  the  Magnificent.  His  private  misfortunes, 
his  weakness  as  a  lover,  and  his  cruelty  as  a  father,  are 
favorite  historical  topics  for  those  who  delight  to  ob 
serve  the  workings  of  human  passions  on  the  arena  of 
the  world.  But  Solyman  also  had  courage,  enterprise, 
a  love  for  letters,  a  fondness  of  magnificence  in  archi 
tecture.  He  himself  commanded  in  thirteen  cam 
paigns,  and  the  terror  of  his  name  pervaded  Asia  and 
Europe.  His  fleets  besieged  Marseilles,  and  alarmed 
Rome  by  anchoring  in  the  mouths  of  the  Tiber,  while 
from  the  Persian  Gulf  they  seized  Bassora  on  the 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.      337 

Tigris  ;  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  pirates  plundered  in 
his  name,  and  the  Ararat  was  hardly  a  limit  to  his 
emissaries  on  land.  He  left  to  his  successor,  Selim  II., 
an  empire  extending  in  the  east  to  Van  and  districts 
which  Russian  arms  subdued  during  the  summer  of 
1829;  in  the  west,  to  Gran,  within  less  than  a  hun 
dred  miles  of  Vienna.  The  conquest  of  Algiers  and 
Tripoli  had  carried  its  dominion  southerly  to  Nubia 
and  the  deserts  of  Africa,  while  in  the  north,  towards 
Poland  and  Russia,  the  country  of  the  Cossacks  was 
interposed,  and  the  line  of  respective  sovereignty  was 
still  undetermined.  The  Nile  and  the  Danube  flowed 
through  the  domains  of  the  Grand  Sultan ;  the  khan 
of  the  Crimea  was  his  tributary  and  ally;  the  rich 
provinces  which  had  witnessed  and  sustained  the  lux 
ury  of  the  Seleucidae,  were  his ;  Palestine  and  a  part 
of  Arabia  had  submitted  to  him ;  Persia  was  overawed 
by  his  superior  power,  just  as  it  now  lies  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Czar ;  and  the  Black  Sea,  and  the  Sea  of  Azoph 
were  exclusively  within  his  jurisdiction.  The  vast  re 
sources  of  these  immense,  populous,  and  opulent  re 
gions,  were  under  the  control  of  one  will,  and  miglit 
be  called  forth  with  secrecy  and  despatch ;  his  regular 
troops  were  admirably  disciplined;  and  his  artillery 
had  been  brought  to  a  state  of  excellence  by  skil 
ful  engineers.  Such  was  the  Ottoman  power,  at  the 
period  of  its  first  aggression  on  Russia. 

That  aggression,  the  first  war  between  Russia  and 
22 


338  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

the  Porte,  happened  in  the  year  1569.  Just  thirteen 
years  before  this  invasion,  the  Russian  Czar,  Ivan  the 
Terrible,  had  succeeded  in  conquering  the  kingdom  of 
Astracan.  The  Porte  on  the  contrary  held  Azoph,  the 
country  round  the  mouth  of  the  Don,  and  all  the 
neighboring  coasts.  The  interest  of  Selim  seemed  to 
require  the  possession  of  Astracan,  that  he  might  in 
vade  Persia  from  the  north,  while  one  oT  his  officers 
suggested  uniting  the  waters  of  the  Don  and  the  Volga 
by  a  canal,  for  the  purpose  of  facilitating  the  transpor 
tation  of  munitions  of  war.  The  fourth  of  August  was 
the  evil  day  for  the  Porte,  when  three  thousand  jani 
zaries  and  twenty  thousand  horsemen  moved  against 
Astracan ;  while  five  thousand  janizaries  and  three 
thousand  laborers  made  their  way  to  Azoph.  These 
ascended  the  Don  to  the  place  where  that  river  is  less 
than  thirty  miles  from  the  Volga,  and  the  excavations 
were  commenced  with  incredible  zeal.  But  the  Prince 
Serebianow  appeared  with  fifteen  thousand  Russians ; 
and  the  janizaries  and  the  workmen  were  massacred 
or  dispersed.  Meantime  the  garrison  of  Astracan 
made  a  successful  sally  upon  their  besiegers.  The 
Turks  were  compelled  to  retreat ;  hoping  still  for  the 
speedy  arrival  of  succor.  But  a  part  of  the  army  of 
the  Tartars  failed  to  appear,  through  jealousy  of  the 
too  great  preponderance  of  the  Porte,  which  compro 
mised  their  independence ;  a  part  had  been  attacked 
and  cut  to  pieces  by  the  Russians.  The  Turks,  in 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  339 

despair,  trusted  themselves  in  their  flight  to  Tartar 
guides,  who  led  them  on  purpose  through  destructive 
morasses,  from  fear  for  the  security  of  their  own  nation ; 
and,  finally,  a  miserable  wreck  only  returned  to  Azoph, 
of  an  army  which  had  gone  forth  in  the  pride  of  certain 
victory.  The  khan  of  the  Crimea,  who  had  anticipated 
his  own  entire  subjection  from  the  success  of  the  Turk 
ish  enterprise,  filled  the  desponding  army  with  super 
stitious  fears.  His  emissaries  represented,  that  in  the 
regions  on  the  Don  and  the  Wolga,  the  winter  extends 
over  nine  months,  and  that  in  summer  the  night  is 
but  three  hours  long ;  while  the  law  of  the  prophet  ap 
points  the  evening  prayers  two  hours  after  sunset,  and 
the  morning  orisons  at  the  break  of  day.  Terrified  at 
the  seeming  contradiction  between  nature  and  the  ordi 
nances  of  their  religion,  they  embarked  at  Azoph  to  re 
turn  ;  but  a  storm  at  sea  completed  the  ruin  of  the 
expedition ;  and  of  all  who  had  been  sent  out  on  the 
great  design,  hardly  seven  thousand  came  back  to  Con 
stantinople.  Peace  was  restored  between  Russia  and 
the  Porte  in  1570  by  a  Russian  embassy.  Yet  it  was 
remarked  and  remembered,  that  Selim,  in  giving  au 
dience  to  the  Muscovite  envoy,  neglected  to  inquire  after 
the  health  of  the  Czar,  and  took  no  concern  for  the  hos- 
pitable  entertainment  of  his  ambassador. 


340  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

II. 

More  than  a  century  passed  away  before  the 
Russian  and  Turkish  arms  again  met  in  battle.  The 
spirit  of  conquest  had  never  carried  the  Mahometans 
far  to  the  north ;  Muscovy  offered  no  places  of  abode 
which  they  coveted;  and  the  Ukraine  promised  little 
booty.  Russia  itself  had  also  been  suffering  a  series  of 
revolutions,  which  were  finally  to  insure  its  prosperity. 
The  old  line  of  Rurik  had  come  to  an  end ;  the  throne 
had  been  usurped  by  a  tyrant,  marked  by  every  vice 
and  possessing  no  claim  as  a  descendant  of  the  ancient 
race  of  monarchs.  At  length  a  fierce  opposition  left 
the  usurper  no  chance  of  escape,  and  he  took  poison. 
His  son  survived  him  but  a  few  weeks.  A  pretender 
to  the  crown  then  entered  the  metropolis  in  triumph, 
and  the  false  Demetrius  held  the  supreme  authority  for 
a  year  and  a  month,  till  he  too  fell  a  victim  to  his  own 
intemperate  cruelty.  Foreign  aggressions  ensued.  The 
people  proclaimed  Shuskoi,  a  domestic  prince,  for  their 
sovereign ;  but  a  succession  of  disasters  placed  the  un 
happy  ruler  at  the  mercy  of  Poland,  while  Sweden  also 
strove  to  get  one  of  its  princes  proclaimed  in  his  stead. 
Absolute  ruin  seemed  the  inevitable  doom  of  Russian 
power.  But  of  a  sudden  a  few  patriots  collected  an 
army,  rescued  Moscow,  and  won  a  victory  over  the 
Poles.  Then  the  Russians  assembled  and  proceeded  to 
the  solemn  election  of  a  sovereign.  The  choice  was 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.     341 

unanimous ;  and  the  whole  nation  hailed  as  its  chief 
the  youthful  Michael,  the  first  of  the  house  of  Ro- 
manow.  Thus  after  an  interregnum  and  fifteen  years 
of  disasters,  the  Russians  were  again  united,  and  victory 
returned  to  their  standards.  Michael  struggled  suc 
cessfully  against  the  Poles  and  the  Swedes ;  he  entered 
into  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Turkey,  on  terms  of  mutual 
friendliness,  obtaining  the  recognition  of  his  authority, 
and  security  against  the  incursions  of  the  Tartars ;  and 
finally,  he  was  the  first  European  sovereign  on  record, 
who  sent  a  solemn  embassy  to  China,  and  formed  with 
that  power  a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce. 

The  long  and  prosperous  reign  of  Michael,  from 
1613  to  1645,  was  succeeded  by  a  reign  likewise  long, 
wise,  and  prosperous.  The  authority  of  Michael  had 
sprung  from  the  pure  source  of  a  patriotic  election ;  his 
son  Alexei,  who  reigned  from  1645  to  1676,  confirmed 
the  interior  of  the  state,  reformed  the  laws,  won  back 
from  Poland  many  provinces,  which  had  been  extorted 
from  Russian  weakness,  and  was  indefatigable  in  pro 
moting  the  general  welfare  of  the  state.  The  father  of 
Peter  the  Great  was  himself  a  man  of  justice  and  of 
mildness. 

His  eldest  son,  Feodor,  followed  him  as  Czar  from 
1676  to  1689.  He  was  of  a  weak  constitution,  yet  of 
an  active  mind  and  unwearied  industry.  It  was  soon 
after  his  accession  to  the  sovereign  power,  in  the  year 
1677,  that  the  second  war  between  Russia  and  the 


342  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

Porte  grew  out  of  the  fickleness  of  the  Zaporagian  Cos 
sacks.  That  most  singular  race  of  men,  either  piqued 
at  the  haughtiness  of  the  Turks,  or  preferring  the  sove 
reignty  of  those  who  were  most  ready  and  able  to 
give  them  aid,  placed  themselves  under  the  protection 
of  the  Russians. 

The  Cossacks,  the  mixed  descendants  of  Russians, 
Poles,  and  Tartars,  had  remained  in  subjection  to 
Poland  since  the  fifteenth  century,  and  had  formed 
an  excellent  bulwark  against  the  Turks  and  Tartars. 
They  rebelled  unsuccessfully  in  1648,  and  again  in 
1651 ;  and  finally,  in  1654,  most  of  them  sought  pro 
tection  of  Russia,  though  a  part  chose  rather  to  acknow 
ledge  the  supremacy  of  the  Porte.  A  conflict  ensued 
between  the  Czar  and  the  republic  of  Poland,  ending 
with  a  compromise  exceedingly  favorable  to  the  Rus 
sians.  It  remained  to  secure  the  country  of  those, 
who,  in  the  first  instance,  had  submitted  to  the  Sul 
tan,  but  now  desired  to  be  incorporated  with  their 
kindred. 

The  war  was  of  three  years  duration ;  the  incidents 
were  few ;  the  results  of  lasting  importance.  An  at 
tack  was  ordered  by  the  grand  vizier  upon  Tchiriquin, 
the  chief  place  of  the  Zaporagians,  on  the  banks  of  the 
river  Tiasmin.  But  the  Russians  were  on  their  guard, 
and  repelled  the  Turks  with  their  entire  discomfiture. 
The  next  year,  the  new  grand  vizier,  the  famous  Cara 
Mustapha,  the  same  who  afterwards  besieged,  and,  but 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  343 

for  Sobieski,  would  have  taken  Vienna,  renewed  the  at 
tack  with  a  host  which,  according  to  his  own  threats, 
was  "  innumerable  as  the  stars  of  the  heavens."  The 
town  of  Tchiriquin  was  taken ;  but  the  success  was  bar 
ren  of  consequences;  and  Cara  Mustapha  retired  to 
seek  a  more  conspicuous  theatre  of  action. 

A  truce  of  twenty  years  was  concluded  at  Radzyn, 
m  the  year  1680.  The  Zaporagian  Cossacks  remained 
under  the  Russians ;  the  Porte  renounced  every  claim 
to  the  Ukraine  and  to  Tchiriquin,  and  guarantied  Rus 
sia  against  any  invasion  from  the  khan  of  the  Crimea ; 
and  finally  the  Tartars  ceded  several  places  to  Russia, 
as  dependencies  of  Kiev.  The  plain  between  the 
Dnieper  and  the  Dniester  was  declared  to  be  an  inde 
pendent  waste,  in  which  no  Tartars  were  to  settle. 

Such  was  the  honorable  peace,  concluded  by  the 
brother  of  Peter  the  Great.  Peodor  was  a  man  of  lofty 
mind,  and  of  great  energy  of  will.  It  was  he  who  col 
lected  the  books,  in  which  the  records  of  the  rank  of 
the  several  nobles  were  insciibed,  and  burnt  them  all 
in  the  presence  of  an  immense  assembly.  This  having 
been  accomplished,  he  made  proclamation,  that  "  privi 
leges  and  high  offices  are  not  the  prerogatives  of  noble 
birth,  but  are  to  be  obtained  by  personal  merit  alone." 

in. 

The  third  war  between  Russia  and  the  Porte,  com 
menced  in  1686,  and  did  not  cease  till  1698 ;  nor  was 


344  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

peace  established  till  1700.  The  early  death  of  Feodor 
II.,  in  1682,  opened  the  supreme  power  of  Russia  to  the 
ambition  of  Sophia.  During  the  first  part  of  her  reign, 
her  sway  was  undisputed  alike  by  the  weakness  of  her 
elder  brother,  Ivan,  or  the  boyhood  of  the  younger, 
Peter.  The  favorite  of  the  female  regent  was  the 
Prince  Galitzin,  a  statesman  of  laborious  habits  and 
sagacity.  The  Austrian  emperor  was  still  engaged  in 
a  protracted  war  with  the  Turkish  power ;  and  Vienna 
had  been  saved  only  by  the  magnanimous  heroism  of 
the  Polish  king.  It  was  seen,  that  in  Russia  an  impor 
tant  auxiliary  might  be  obtained ;  and  Polish  and  Aus 
trian  diplomacy  were  busy  in  seeking  the  alliance. 

The  wary  Galitzin  saw  the  advantages  which  Russia 
might  win  by  a  rupture  with  Turkey.  At  that  time 
there  was  not  one  single  harbor  on  the  Black  Sea  be 
longing  to  the  Muscovite ;  and  the  mouths  of  the  Don 
and  the  port  of  Azoph  began  to  seem  essential  to  Rus 
sian  advancement.  But  Galitzin  did  not  engage  im 
petuously  in  the  alliance.  A  treaty  with  Poland  bearing 
date  May  sixth,  1686,  and  denominated  "  The  Perpetual 
Peace,"  required  that  republic  to  resign  all  claims  to 
Smolensko  and  the  Ukraine,  as  the  preliminary  to  the 
alliance  which  first  united  Austria  and  Russia  against 
the  Porte,  under  the  express  condition  that  no  separate 
peace  should  be  concluded.  At  the  same  time,  the 
relations  of  Russia  .with  western  Europe  were  renewed. 
Many  centuries  before,  a  Russian  princess  became  the 


THE   WARS    OF   RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  345 

mother  of  the  French  kings ;  in  1687  the  first  embassy 
of  modern  Russia  appeared  in  Paris. 

The  campaigns  of  1687  and  1688  were  both  unsuc 
cessful.  In  the  former,  the  failure  was  attributed  to 
the  treachery  of  the  Cossacks ;  in  consequence  of 
which,  their  Hetman  was  banished  to  Siberia,  and  the 
notorious  Mazeppa  promoted  to  his  place.  In  the  sec 
ond  campaign,  the  Tartars  being  defeated,  set  fire  to 
the  arid  prairies,  and  the  flames,  as  they  spread  widely 
and  continued  long,  involved  many  of  the  people  and 
their  cattle  in  the  conflagration,  and  destroyed  all 
means  of  forage. 

But  a  new  era  was  approaching  for  the  internal  re 
lations  of  Russia.  Peter  had  assumed  his  equal  right 
to  sovereignty,  at  the  age  of  sixteen ;  a  bloody  revolu 
tion  secured  the  new  Czar  in  power ;  and  the  war  with 
the  Turks  was  almost  forgotten  for  a  series  of  years. 
The  intrigues  of  the  court  and  the  interior  of  the 
empire,  had  occupied  the  attention  of  the  restless  Czar. 
But  at  length  his  ambition  coveted  an  establishment  on 
the  Black  Sea,  and  the  capture  of  Azoph  was  resolved 
upon.  In  1695,  a  fleet,  built  upon  the  Voronez,  a 
navigable  branch  of  the  Don,  descended  the  stream, 
and  entered  the  Sea  of  Azoph.  A  numerous  army  was 
provided  to  repel  the  invasions  of  the  Tartars  ;  another 
was  employed  in  conducting  the  siege.  Yet  the  first 
efforts  of  the  young  Czar  were  rash  and  unsuccessful. 


346  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

He  lost,  during  the  campaign,  many  thousands  of  his 
troops,  and  failed  to  take  the  city. 

Great  success  is  usually  preceded  by  defeats.  Peter 
became  more  cautious ;  he  obtained  from  abroad  better 
engines  and  artillery,  and  when  in  the  next  spring  the 
siege  was  renewed,  it  was  found  impossible  for  the 
Turkish  garrison  to  hold  out.  The  city  surrendered ; 
the  fortifications  were  repaired;  the  harbor  was  im 
proved;  and  the  Russian  standard  was  for  the  first 
time  planted  in  triumph  on  the  shores  of  waters  which 
connect  with  the  Mediterranean.  Previously  to  the 
surrender  of  the  place,  the  small  Russian  fleet  had  en 
gaged  the  Turkish  squadron,  and  to  the  astonishment 
of  Europe,  the  fleet  of  a  naval  power  which  had  been 
the  terror  of  the  civilized  world,  especially  of  the 
Mediterranean  Sea,  was  vanquished  by  the  boats  of 
Russian  sailors,  who  had  hardly  before  seen,  much  less 
unfurled  a  sail,  and  whose  only  maritime  commu 
nication  with  the  rest  of  mankind,  had  been  through 
the  port  of  Archangel.  The  victorious  army  returned 
in  triumphal  procession  to  Moscow.  Peter  modestly 
joined  in  the  crowd  of  gazers,  took  part  in  applauding 
the  merit  of  the  conquerors,  and  himself  appeared  as  a 
private  volunteer  in  the  train  of  a  superior  officer. 

On  the  continuance  of  the  war,  further  advantages 
were  gained  at  Azoph,  and  Perecop  was  taken  after  a 
murderous  battle  with  the  Tartars.  But  it  was  Eugene 
who  accelerated  peace  by  his  success  with  the  Aus- 


THE   WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  347 

trian  forces  at  Zenta.  Intrusted  for  the  first  time  with 
the  chief  command,  he  dared  to  disobey  the  emperor's 
orders,  which  prohibited  an  engagement,  and  attacked 
the  numerous  Turkish  army  in  the  presence  of  the  Sul 
tan.  Two  hours,  and  a  loss  of  five  hundred  men,  pro 
cured  a  complete  and  decisive  victory.  "The  sun 
seemed  to  linger  on  the  horizon,"  said  the  youthful 
hero,  to  whose  enthusiasm  a  little  glorying  may  be 
pardoned,  "  to  gild  with  his  last  rays  the  triumphant 
standards  of  Austria."  The  peace  of  Carlovitz  gave  tc 
Peter  a  truce  of  two  years,  and  the  possession  of  Azoph 
with  all  its  dependencies.  The  towns  on  the  mouths 
of  the  Dnieper  were  dismantled,  but  remained  under 
Turkish  supremacy.  This  truce,  entered  into  on  the 
twenty-fifth  of  January,  1699,  was  converted  into  a 
definitive  peace  for  thirty  years,  on  the  third  of  July, 
1700. 

Perhaps  the  reader  is  curious  to  know  what  honors 
were  lavished  on  the  hero  whose  first  command  was 
rendered  illustrious  by  a  victory,  which  gave  repose  to 
Russia,  Poland,  and  Austria  ?  It  may  be  asked,  what 
artists  were  engaged  to  preserve  his  features  in  marble  ? 
What  public  distinctions  marked  the  deliverer  of  his 
sovereign?  What  rank,  what  estates,  what  triumphal 
entries  were  awarded  to  the  modest  and  valiant  Eu 
gene?  When  the  hero  delivered  the  great  seal  of  the 
Ottoman  empire  to  the  Austrian  sovereign,  he  was 
welcomed  with  no  approbation.  He  was  soon  after 


348  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

arrested  for  fighting  a  battle  against  orders ;  was  de 
prived  of  his  sword ;  and  like  a  malefactor,  put  under 
arrest.  It  was  no  new  thing  for  Austria  to  be  ungrate 
ful.  In  September,  1683,  during  this  same  war  of 
Austria  with  Turkey,  the  Polish  king  had  saved  Vienna 
from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Turks.  But  John 
Sobieski  was  an  elective  king  ;  and  the  cabinet  of  the 
emperor  gravely  consulted,  if  such  an  one  had  ever  had 
access  to  the  imperial  presence,  and  in  what  manner  he 
ought  to  be  received.  The  deliverer  of  Vienna,  the 
open,  brave,  chivalric  Sobieski,  was  finally  admitted  to 
an  interview,  the  formalities  of  which  had  been  settled 
with  ungrateful  and  pusillanimous  punctiliousness. 

On  the  other  hand  Peter  the  Great  set  at  nought 
the  distinctions  of  decorum  as  well  as  the  vain  ones 
of  birth.  He  made  of  a  baker's  boy,  who  had  once 
cried  bread  in  the  streets  of  Moscow,  but  who  had 
abilities  for  rendering  important  services  to  the  state, 
a  general,  a  prince,  a  companion,  and  a  friend;  and 
raised  to  the  rank  of  czarina  a  servant  maid,  whose 
venal  beauty  had  first  attracted  his  desires,  and  whose 
intellectual  endowments  and  heroism  had  finally  won 
his  esteem 


IV. 

Our  design  extends  no  further  than  to  trace  the 
results  of  the  successive  wars  which  Russia  waged  with 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.     349 

her  southern  neighbor.  We  cannot  even  glance  at  the 
succession  of  brilliant  victories  and  strange  disasters, 
which  made  of  the  Swedish  Charles  at  one  moment  the 
dictator  of  the  north,  and  not  many  years  after,  the 
fugitive  dependent  on  the  charities  of  Turkey.  The 
Turks  manifested  admiration  for  the  unbending  ener 
gies  of  this  northern  hero,  and  submitted  to  the  influ 
ence  of  one  who  had  only  his  own  haughty  stubborn 
ness  to  inspire  respect.  The  fourth  war  of  Russia  and 
the  Porte  was  but  an  interlude  to  the  grand  drama 
which  the  northern  nations  had  been  enacting  along 
the  provinces  on  the  Baltic.  It  is  remarkable  as  the 
only  one  of  the  whole  series  in  which  the  crescent  had 
the  superiority ;  and  it  almost  cost  the  reformer  of  the 
Russian  nation  his  liberty  and  the  fruits  of  his  la 
borious  life. 

This  war  was  one  of  aggression  on  the  part  of  the 
Porte.  Peter  strove  hard  to  avoid  it.  It  was  declared 
in  Constantinople,  on  the  twentieth  of  November, 
1710 ;  and  the  counter- declaration  of  Russia  was 
published  at  Moscow,  in  February,  1711.  On  the 
side  of  the  Porte,  the  intrigues  of  the  Swedish  king 
had  been  seconded  by  the  apprehensions  of  the  khan 
of  the  Crimea,  who  feared  that  his  own  territory  would 
next  be  coveted  by  his  rapacious  neighbor.  The  Sul 
tan  also  heard  with  dismay  of  a  Russian  fleet  in  the 
harbor  of  Taganrog,  and  of  Russian  fortifications  and 
artillery  at  Azoph. 


350  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

The  Czar  was  attended  during  the  campaign  by  the 
woman,  who,  from  a  servant  girl  and  captive,  had  risen 
to  be  his  wife.  The  hospodar  of  Moldavia,  the  unfor 
tunate  Cantemir,  proved  a  faithful  ally  to  the  Russians  ; 
the  hospodar  of  Wallachia  had  also  sought  a  corre 
spondence  with  Peter ;  but  finding  a  rival  traitor  in 
favor,  by  a  second  infidelity  he  returned  to  his  alle 
giance  to  the  Porte.  Cantemir  was  unable  to  make 
good  the  promises  which  he  had  given  in  sincerity, 
while  Brancovan,  the  hospodar  of  Wallachia,  assisted 
in  decoying  Peter  into  an  inextricable  position. 

When  the  Czar  found  himself,  with  no  more  than 
about  twenty-two  thousand  men,  encompassed  by  a 
hostile  army  of  two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand, 
near  the  Pruth,  suffering  for  want  of  water,  without 
strength  to  hazard  a  battle,  or  force  a  retreat,  or  make 
good  a  defence,  his  magnanimity  did  not  desert  him. 
'A  messenger  was  despatched  to  his  senate,  declaring 
that  his  authority  should  cease  with  his  liberty,  and 
that  in  case  of  his  death,  the  senate  should  proceed  to 
elect  the  worthiest  of  their  number  his  successor. 

But  the  counsels  of  a  woman  saved  him.  The 
czarina  proposed  negotiations ;  and  the  grand  vizier 
deemed  a  peace  the  surest  way  of  securing  the  interests 
of  his  master.  Its  terms  were,  the  restoration  of 
Azoph ;  the  destruction  of  the  fortifications  of  Ta 
ganrog  ;  the  free  return  of  the  Swedish  monarch 
to  his  realm.  The  grand  vizier  had  further  demanded, 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  351 

that  the  person  of  Caritemir,  the  rebellious  subject  of 
the  Porte,  should  be  delivered  up.  "I  would  rather," 
answered  the  Czar,  "  cede  all  the  territory  between  this 
and  Kursk ;  I  should  have  the  hope  of  some  day  re 
covering  it ;  but  my  broken  faith  would  be  irreparable  : 
I  cannot  violate  my  promise ;  honor  is  the  only  thing 
that  is  peculiarly  ours ;  and  to  renounce  it  is  to  cease 
to  be  a  monarch." 

Informed  of  the  negotiation,  Charles  XII.  hastened 
to  the  Ottoman  camp,  to  reproach  and  to  question  the 
grand  vizier.  "  How  dare  you,"  said  the  Swede,  "how 
dare  you  sign  the  peace  without  first  having  my  royal 
sanction,  for  whose  interest  the  war  was  begun  ? " 
The  grand  vizier  replied,  "  that  his  sublime  master 
had  ordered  him  to  combat  for  the  interests  of  the 
Ottoman  empire."  "You might  have  led  the  Czar  and 
his  army  captive  to  Constantinople,"  said  the  king. 
"  And  if  I  had  taken  the  Czar,"  replied  the  vizier,  with' 
insulting  apathy,  "  who  would  have  governed  his  states 
in  his  absence  ?  It  is  not  well  for  all  kings  to  live 
abroad." 

A  delay  in  the  surrender  of  Azoph  had  nearly 
renewed  the  war ;  but  peace  was  finally  established  in 
April,  1712,  under  English  and  Polish  mediation.  The 
evacuation  of  Poland  by  the  Russian  armies  was  a  new 
condition. 

Thus  were  the  plans  of  Peter  in  the  south  entirely 
frustrated.  The  acquisitions  of  his  youth  were  lost ; 


352  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

the  Russian  fleets  disappeared  on  the  Sea  of  Azoph; 
the  Euxine  remained  wholly  a  Turkish  sea ;  and  the 
southern  commerce  of  Russia  was  once  more  deprived 
of  all  safe  and  natural  issues.  The  Czar  sought  indem 
nification  in  the  north  •  his  affections  were  indeed  more 
fixed  upon  that  region,  since  it  brought  him  into  im 
mediate  connexion  with  civilized  Europe ;  and  Sweden 
was  at  last  compelled  to  cede  even  more  than  he  had 
demanded. 


v. 

It  was  on  occasion  of  the  peace  with  Sweden  in  1721, 
that  the  Czar  was  saluted  by  the  Russian  senate,  the 
synod,  and  the  people,  with  the  title  of  Emperor  of  all 
Russia,  which  was  at  once  acknowledged  by  Sweden, 
the  Netherlands,  and  Prussia;  but  which  was  not 
adopted  by  the  German  empire  till  1747,  nor  by 
Spain  till  1759. 

Four  and  twenty  years  had  elapsed  since  the  disas 
ters  on  the  Pruth  had  left  to  the  Turkish  power  the  pride 
of  success.  But  the  spirit  of  the  Russians  burned  to 
avenge  then*  reverses,  and  wipe  away  the  recollection 
of  their  last  treaty  of  peace.  In  the  field-marshal 
Munich,  the  empress  Anna  found  for  her  forces  a 
leader,  whom  Frederick  the  Great  has  called  the 
Eugene  of  the  North.  Thus  in  1735,  a  fifth  war 
against  the  Porte  was  resolved  upon,  and  Austria  was 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  353 

induced  to  take  part  in  it,  through  the  hope  of  aggran 
dizement  on  her  eastern  frontier. 

The  war  on  the  part  of  Russia  was  conducted  with 
glory.  Azoph  was  besieged  and  taken ;  and  the 
Crimea  invaded,  but  not  reduced.  Otchakov  was 
conquered  amid  streams  of  blood,  in  1737.  The 
following  year  was  not  without  its  disasters ;  but  in 
1739  the  Dniester  was  passed,  the  fortress  of  Choczim 
reduced,  and  all  Moldavia  fell  into  the  possession  of 
Russia. 

On  the  part  of  Austria,  there  had,  on  the  contrary, 
been  displayed  a  singular  succession  of  ignorant  and 
pusillanimous  leaders  and  statesmen.  Modern  history 
hardly  furnishes  an  example  of  such  want  of  energy, 
union,  and  ability,  as  was  seen  in  the  whole  course  of 
the  management  of  the  war,  and  still  more  in  the 
negotiations  for  peace.  The  Austrian  plenipotentiary 
pleaded  the  express  instructions  of  his  sovereign ;  the 
emperor  charged  the  envoy  with  treachery  and  weak 
ness  ;  and  the  Austrian  councils  exhibited,  in  a  season 
of  trial  and  danger,  the  loathsome  spectacle  of  petty 
minds,  sacrificing  the  large  interests  of  nations  in  the 
pursuit  of  private  intrigues,  and  the  gratifications  of  a 
mean-spirited,  narrow,  and  quarrelsome  ambition. 

It  was  on  that  occasion,  in  1739,  that  Austria  sur 
rendered  Belgrade,  and  accepted  the  Danube,  the  Save, 
and  the  Unna,  for  boundaries.  The  history  of  the 
Austrian  part  of  the  war  is  a  series  of  common  events, 
•  23 


354  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

rescued  by  no  characteristics,  except  the  magnitude  of 
the  interests  at  issue,  from  the  dull  mediocrity  of 
ordinary  routine.  The  Austrian  plenipotentiary  was 
subjected  in  the  Turkish  camp  to  every  kind  of  in 
dignity.  The  grand  vizier  cut  short  all  negotiation. 
"  There  is.  but  one  God,"  such  was  his  style  of  diplo 
macy,  "  and  I  have  but  one  word ;  and  that  is, 
Belgrade." 

Thus  deserted,  Russia  was  glad  to  withdraw  from 
the  contest.  The  conditions  which  she  obtained,  re 
trieved  her  honor.  The  treaty  of  the  Pruth  was 
annulled ;  the  imperial  dignity  of  the  Russian  monarch 
was  acknowledged ;  Azoph  remained  this  time  to  the 
Russians ;  the  territory  of  Russia  in  the  Ukraine  was 
extended.  But  it  was  also  stipulated,  that  Russian 
ships  were  not  to  sail  on  the  waters  of  the  Euxine. 
The  positive  results  of  the  war  were  considerable ;  but 
the  moral  influences  on  the  tone  of  feeling  in  Russia, 
were  of  vastly  more  moment.  Henceforth  the  Turkish 
power  was  regarded  with  comparative  disdain.  The 
decisive  superiority  of  Russian  arms,  and  the  perfected 
organization  of  the  Russian  military  forces,  were  due  to 
the  genius  of  Munich. 

And  what  was  his  reward  ?  He  had  hoped  for  an 
independent  principality,  which  he  was  to  conquer  from 
the  Porte.  He  subsequently  devised  the  method  of  su 
perintending  the  war  department  of  the  empire.  Disap 
pointed  in  his  ambition,  he  resigned  his  public  employ- 


THE    WAIIS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  355 

ments.  At  the  end  of  a  series  of  revolutions,  he  was 
arraigned  before  an  inquisitorial  tribunal.  Vexed  at 
their  minute  examinations,  the  veteran  exclaimed, 
"Write  down  what  answers  you  please,  and  I  will 
sign  them."  They  did  so,  and  he  was  condemned  to 
death ;  but  the  empress  Elizabeth,  who,  during  her  long 
reign  permitted  no  capital  punishment,  would  only  ban 
ish  him  to  Siberia.  There  he  occupied  a  house  which  he 
had  himself  caused  to  be  erected  for  the  bloody  Biren. 
His  residence,  or  rather  his  prison,  was  an  isolated  build 
ing,  situated  on  a  morass,  completely  exposed  to  obser 
vation.  The  income  allowed  for  the  maintenance  of  his 
household  was  twelve  shillings  a  day.  He  amused 
himself  with  teaching  boys  geometry;  and  his  name 
was  still  a  terror  in  all  the  neighboring  provinces.  The 
reverses  of  fortune,  which  are  frequent  in  Russian 
history,  surpass  the  succession  of  scenes  in  a  masque 
rade.  The  engineer  who  planned  and  executed  the 
canal  of  Ladoga  was  left  to  draw  diagrams  for  children 
in  Siberia.  He,  whose  voice  had  always  rung  like  a 
trumpet  in  the  ears  of  his  army,  and  poured  an  irre 
sistible  flood  of  troops  to  the  assault  of  Otchakov  and 
Choczim,  had  no  wider  space  for  action  than  a  marshy 
farm,  and  was  himself  transformed  to  a  herdsman,  hal 
looing  to  his  cattle,  on  whose  milk  he  in  part  depended 
for  the  daily  expenses  of  his  household. 

At  the  age  of  seventy-nine,  the  venerable  old  map 
was  recalled  by  Peter  III. ;  and  one  who  knew  him, 


356  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

describes  him  then  to  have  been  the  model  of  aged, 
manly  beauty.  As  he  returned  from  his  exile,  he 
knew  not  if  any  one  of  his  blood  had  been  left  alive ; 
but  a  band  of  thirty-three  of  his  descendants  assembled 
to  welcome  him  back  to  society  and  civilization. 

VI. 

TJte  sixth  tear  of  Russia  and  the  Porte  was  begun 
by  the  latter  power,  and  had  for  its  immediate  cause 
the  determination  of  the  Porte  to  preserve  the  inde 
pendence  of  Poland.  Catharine  was  not  averse  to  war. 
The  aged  Munich  had  retained  the  fervor  of  his  mind, 
and  during  the  first  years  of  the  reign  of  the  empress, 
she  who  was  susceptible  to  every  thing  which  promised 
glory  or  accession  of  power,  loved  to  hear  the  octo 
genarian  chief  detail  the  plans  which  Peter  had  con 
ceived,  and  the  empress  Anna  well  nigh  executed. 

The  Porte  strenuously  demanded  the  evacuation  of 
Poland  by  the  Russian  armies.  France  encouraged' 
the  sultan,  who  was  a  man  of  great  firmness,  to  insist 
on  the  demand.  Catharine,  on  the  contrary,  was 
determined  by  intrigues,  divisions,  and  force  of  arms, 
to  control  the  Polish  government.  Prussia  and  Aus 
tria  acceded  to  her  designs,  and  became  partners  in  the 
aggressions  on  a  state,  which,  at  that  time,  possessed  a 
territory  not  inferior  in  extent  to  Prance. 

A  peace  of  thirty  years  had  diminished  the  military 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.     357 

zeal  of  the  Ottomans.  They  began  the  war,  and  yet 
were  obliged  to  act  on  the  defensive.  Austra  was  a 
quiet  spectator ;  Frederick  of  Prussia  even  paid  sub 
sidies  to  the  new  Semiramis. 

On  the  other  hand,  Catharine  was  animated  by 
every  motive  which  ambition  and  vanity  could  suggest. 
All  Europe  seemed  to  rejoice  that  a  woman  was  to 
execute,  what  so  many  brave  men  had  failed  to  carry 
into  effect.  Voltaire  nattered  Catharine  as  though  she 
had  been  a  goddess  ;  and  expressed  for  her  every  sen 
timent  of  adoration  which  courtly  flattery  could  adopt. 
"Barbarians,"  said  he,  "who  despise  the  fine  arts,  and 
shut  up  women,  ought  to  be  exterminated.  It  is  fit 
for  a  heroine  to  punish  them  for  their  want  of  deference 
to  the  sex."  When  in  the  first  year  of  the  war,  Choc- 
zim  was  taken  by  the  Russians,  "  Oh !  Minerva  of 
the  North,"  cried  Voltaire,  "  avenge  the  Greeks ;  I  go 
to  meet  you  on  the  plains  of  Marathon."  "  It  is  not 
enough  that  the  Turks  should  be  humbled,"  thus  he 
cheered  on  the  empress ;  "  their  empire  in  Europe  must 
be  annihilated.  They  must  be  banished  and,  for  ever,  to 
Asia,"  He  sounded  "  the  tocsin  of  kings,"  in  which 
he  devoted  the  Ottoman  race  to  ruin ;  advocating  a 
war  of  extermination  sometimes  with  fanatical  fervor, 
sometimes  with  jests  and  gallantry.  All  Europe  ap 
plauded  without  asking  if  the  design  was  just,  or  if 
Russian  despotism  was  less  oppressive  than  the  Turkish. 
Religious  sympathy  was  awakened :  a  hostile  feeling  to 


358  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

a  foreign  race  revived ;  and  the  thought  of  the  resto 
ration  of  Greece  captivated  the  imagination. 

Connexions  were  formed  with  the  insurgent  pacha 
of  Egypt ;  an  insurrection  was  promoted  in  the  Morea ; 
the  war  was  carried  beyond  the  Danube  into  the  moun 
tains  of  Bulgaria,  to  Chumla,  and  almost  beyond  the 
Balkan ;  while  a  Russian  fleet  was  despatched  from  the 
ports  of  the  Baltic  to  the  Cyclades. 

The  burning  of  the  Turkish  fleet  at  Tchesme  was 
the  great  event  at  sea.  The  Turks  had  occupied  a 
strong  position  in  a  strait  between  the  island  of  Chios 
and  the  Asiatic  coast.  Nevertheless,  the  Russian  ad 
miral  deemed  it  fit  to  make  an  attack.  The  flag  ship 
of  the  Russians  came  into  close  contact  with  the  largest 
vessel  of  the  Turks.  After  an  obstinate  engagement, 
both  took  fire,  and  blew  up ;  the  officers  and  a  very 
few  men  only  having  escaped.  Upon  this  the  Turks 
cut  their  cables  and  retreated  to  the  small  bay  of 
Tchesme.  Here  they  were  closely  huddled  together, 
and  were  immediately  blockaded  by  the  Russians. 
Two  fire  ships  were  finally  brought  to  communicate 
flames  to  the  Turkish  fleet.  "  The  earth  and  the 
waves,"  says  Catharine,  "trembled  from  the  great 
number  of  the  enemy's  vessels  which  were  blown  up. 
The  sound  reached  to  Smyrna,  a  distance  of  nearly 
forty  miles.  The  morning  after  the  conflagration,  the 
water  in  the  harbor  of  Tchesme  was  tinged  with  blood, 
so  many  Turks  had  perished."  And  she  adds,  "  as  for 


THE    WARS    OF    IIUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  359 

the  taking  of  Constantinople,  I  do  not  believe  it  so  near  • 
yet  we  must  despair  of  nothing."  A  few  days  after, 
still  dwelling  on  these  scenes  of  horror,  she  expresses  her 
fear,  that  her  deeds  in  war  may  seem  fabulous  to  pos 
terity.  "Yet  a  little  more  of  this  good  fortune  and 
the  history  of  the  Turks  will  furnish  a  new  subject  for 
tragedy  to  future  ages."  She  had  told  the  defender  of 
toleration  that  twenty  thousand  Mussulmen  had  per 
ished,  and  now  she  writes,  "  Really  I  think  with  you, 
that  it  wnl  soon  be  time  for  me  to  go  study  Greek  at 
some  university." 

By  land,  Romanzoff  overran  Moldavia  and  Walla- 
chia  in  1770,  after  conquering,  on  the  river  Kagul, 
150,000  Turks,  with  an  army  of  but  fifteen  thousand 
Russians.  In  1771,  Dolgoruki  succeeded  in  subdu 
ing  the  Crimea  which  the  Russians  called  Taurida, 
and  was  rewarded  with  the  name  of  Krimski.  "  You 
will  keep  the  Tauric  Chersonesus,"  said  Voltaire ; "  but 
if  you  make  peace  now,  what  will  become  of  my  poor 
Greece."  "  If  the  war  continues,"  wrote  the  empress, 
"  there  will  be  nothing  left  for  us  to  take  but  Byzan 
tium,  and  in  truth  I  begin  to  think  that  that  is  not 
impossible." 

Charmed  with  the  flattery  of  the  greatest  writer  of 
the  age,  she  believed  in  his  visions  of  Olympian  games 
to  be  established  anew,  of  Attica  rising  up  again  in  its 
ancient  glory.  A  design  for  a  medal,  to  celebrate  the 
taking  of  Constantinople,  was  got  ready  in  anticipa- 


360  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

tion ;  she  would  say,  half  in  jest,  half  in  earnest,  "  We 
will  have  the  ancient  Greek  tragedies  enacted  by 
Grecian  players  on  the  theatre  of  Athens ; "  and  as 
for  the  road  from  Moscow  to  Corinth,  she  had  traced 
it  with  her  own  hand  on  her  maps.  "  But  after  ah1," 
said  she  as  her  finances  became  impaired,  "  I  must 
practise  moderation,  and  say  peace  is  better  than  the 
finest  war  in  the  world."  The  year*  1773  passed  in 
negotiations. 

There  was  not  one  of  the  European  powers  that 
was  willing  to  see  the  downfall  of  the  Porte ;  but  the 
English  Ministry  could  not  interfere,  for  it  gave  all  its 
energies  to  the  repression  of  the  spirit  of  liberty  in 
America;  and  was  led  by  its  jealousy  of  France  to 
seek  the  most  intimate  political  connexion  with  Russia. 
France  was  paralysed  by  the  abject  vices  of  her  sove 
reign.  The  king  of  Prussia  clearly  discerned  how 
adverse  to  his  own  interest  would  be  the  increase  of 
his  neighbor,  but  he  was  bound  by  a  treaty  of  alliance 
to  which  he  remained  faithful.  Austria  alone  under 
took  to  prevent  Russian  aggrandizement  at  the  expense 
of  Turkey. 

On  the  sixth  of  July,  1771,  her  ambassador,  Von 
Thugut,  signed  at  Constantinople  a  secret  convention, 
by  which  Austria,  taking  advantage  of  the  necessities 
of  the  Porte,  made  valuable  acquisitions  of  money, 
land,  and  commercial  privileges,  and  in  consideration 
of  these  advantages,  promised  jointly  with  the  Porte  to 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  361 

compel  Russia  to  return  all  tlie  Turkish  provinces  she 
had  conquered,  and  to  secure  the  independence  and 
freedom  of  the  republic  of  Poland,  which  would  then 
be  a  wall  between  Russia  and  the  Porte.  All  the 
while  that  in  his  negotiations  with  the  Porte  he  was 
assuming  such  obligations  of  hostility  to  Russia,  he 
was  using  towards  that  power  the  strongest  assurances 
of  friendship,  and  engaged,  with  certain  conditions,  to 
use  his  influence  to  procure  for  Russia  an  advantageous 
peace.  Meantime,  the  convention  was  kept  a  secret  for 
several  months ;  and  Austria  received  a  very  accept 
able  strip  of  land  as  well  as  a  large  sum  of  money, 
which  was  welcome  to  an  exhausted  treasury. 

Hardly  were  these  advantages  secured  from  the 
Porte,  when  Kaunitz,  allured  by  the  prospect  of  large 
acquisitions  from  Poland,  came  to  an  understanding 
with  Russia,  and  expressed  a  willingness  to  assent  to 
those  conditions  of  peace  which  Catharine  desired. 
Only  he  gave  the  crafty  counsel,  that  she  should  first 
make  much  more  severe  requisitions  than  she  designed 
to  insist  upon,  to  which  Austria  might  earnestly 
object.  Then  by  degrees  the  terms  being  made  milder, 
as  if  by  Austrian  influence,  both  powers  were  to  unite 
in  pressing  them  upon  the  Porte. 

The  plan  for  jointly  plundering  Turkey  as  well  as 
Poland,  was  madd  just  six  months  after  the  convention 
by  which  Austria  had  pledged  herself  to  take  part  with 
the  Porte  till  all  its  possessions  should  be  recovered. 


362  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

The  sympathy  expressed  by  the  European  powers 
in  behalf  of  Turkey,  served  only  to  confirm  it  in 
its  disinclination  to  peace,  and  active  operations  were 
earnestly  renewed.  "  You  will  take  Byzantium,"  wrote 
Voltaire  to  the  empress,  "  and  you  will  cause  the 
(Edipus  of  Sophocles  to  be  played  at  Athens."  "  If 
the  Turks  continue  the  war,"  answered  Catharine, 
"  your  wishes  to  see  us  upon  the  Bosphorus  will  be  very 
near  their  fulfilment."  In  1773  active  operations  were 
renewed  in  good  earnest.  Romanzoff  crossed  the 
Danube,  which  no  Russian  army  had  done  before  for 
eight  hundred  years.  Yet  he  was  obliged  to  retreat 
with  great  loss.  The  next  year  saw  him  again  beyond 
the  Danube ;  winning  victories,  and  cutting  off  all  com 
munication  between  the  grand  vizier  at  Chumla  and 
Constantinople.  Meantime,  the  persevering  Mustapha 
had  been  gathered  to  his  fathers,  and  was  succeeded  by 
the  imbecile  Abdul  Hamid.  The  grand  vizier  had  no 
means  of  defence ;  his  troops,  in  their  fury,  only  mas 
sacred  each  other.  The  religious  warlike  enthusiasm 
of  the  Ottomans  seemed  to  be  extinct,  under  rulers 
educated  in  the  seraglio  to  indulgence,  not  to  the  labors 
of  government.  On  the  twenty-first  of  July,  1774, 
sixty -three  years  almost  to  a  day  after  the  unfortunate 
treaty,  by  which  Peter  the  Great  had  saved  himself 
from  a  ruinous  captivity,  Romanzoff  w*as  able  to  dictate  a 
peace,  which  was  hastily  signed  in  the  Russian  camp 
at  Kutchuk-Kainardghi. 


THE    WARS    OP    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  363 

Its  conditions  were  of  the  utmost  importance  in 
themselves  and  in  then:  consequences.  1.  The  Tartars 
in  the  Crimea  and  the  Kuban  were  to  be  independent, 
under  Russian  protection.  2.  The  Porte  retained 

Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  but  Russia  reserved  the  right 
i 

of  interfering,  by  its  ambassadors  at  Constantinople,  in 
their  concerns.  3.  Russia  retained,  of  its  conquests, 
Kinburn  and  Azoph,  and  important  fortresses  in  the 
Crimea.  4.  Commercial  freedom  was  secured  to  the 
Russians  in  the  Euxine,  and  in  ah1  the  Turkish  waters. 

Thus  ended  the  six  years'  contest.  The  coast  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Dnieper  to  the  Kuban,  was  now 
either  Russian,  or  at  the  mercy  of  Russia.  The  Dar 
danelles  were  open  to  its  fleets,  and  the  Euxine  free  to 
its  commerce. 

The  peace  of  Kainardghi  had  been  dictated  by 
Catharine,  unrestrained  by  any  foreign  mediation.  At 
the  close  of  it,  she  found  herself  the  arbitress  of  the 
interests  of  the  northern  nations  ;  an  object  of  distrust 
to  the  Swedish  Gustavus ;  and  of  apprehension  to  the 
aged  Frederic  ;  while  the  Austrian  emperor  courted 
her  alliance,  and  the  remnant  of  Poland  was  swayed 
by  her  influence.  By  a  wise  organization  of  the  states 
of  her  boundless  empire,  she  brought  its  entire  re 
sources  within  her  immediate  and  easy  control;  its 
moral  strength  was  vastly  increased  by  her  arms ;  and 
now  that  her  generals  had  been  successful  in  Europe 
and  Asia  Minor,  her  imperial  vanity  aspired  to  the  dis- 


364  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

tinction  of  legislating  for  the  high  seas,  and  protecting 
the  rights  of  neutral  flags  against  the  aggressions  of 
maritime  tyranny.  Is  it  strange,  then,  that  her  mind 
should  have  still  fed  on  the  hope  of  restoring  the 
Byzantine  empire  ?  Is  it  wonderful,  that  she  should 
have  aspired  to  connect  herself  with  classic  associations, 
and  have  enjoyed,  in  anticipation,  the  flatteries  that 
would  have  waited  on  the  female  restorer  of  Greece, 
and  the  female  conqueror  of  Byzantium  ?  Up  to  the 
last  year  of  his  life,  Voltaire  continued  to  use  all  his 
arts  of  flattery  to  animate  her  purpose.  "  The  secret," 
said  he,  "of  sending  the  Turks  back  to  the  coun 
tries  from  which  they  came,  is  reserved  for  the  first 
woman  of  the  human  race,  whose  name  is  Catharine." 
And  he  offers  to  prostrate  himself  at  her  feet,  and  in 
his  dying  agony  to  implore  victory  for  her  arms. 

The  success  of  her  first  war  with  the  Porte  filled 
Catharine  with  an  exalted  idea  of  her  superior  re 
sources  ;  and  she  continued  to  aspire  to  an  immor 
tality  of  glory  for  her  own  name,  by  establishing  a, 
Grec-k  or  Oriental  Empire.  During  her  life  it  was  her 
intention  herself  to  govern  this  new  dominion,  together 
with  her  possessions  at  the  North ;  and  to  bequeath 
the  latter  to  her  grandson  Alexander,  the  former  to 
Constantine.  The  names  of  the  children  were  tokens 
of  the  high  destiny  that  was  preparing  for  them. 
Constantine,  from  his  birth,  was  treated  as  the  future 
emperor  of  Greece  and  the  East.  He  was  baptized 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  365 

according  to  the  rites  of  the  Oriental  Greek  Church, 
which  differ  somewhat  from  the  Russian,  and  he  had 
Grecian  nurses  and  attendants  from  the  Archipelago. 
Accident  prevented  his  being  nursed  with  Grecian 
milk,  but  Grecian  sounds  were  among  the  first  which 
he  heard.  He  was  called  the  Star  of  the  East,  and 
while  yet  a  child,  Greeks  were  admitted  to  his  presence 
to  do  him  homage. 

But  before  engaging  in  a  new  war  with  the  Turks, 
Catharine  secured  the  benefits  of  the  recent  pacification. 
For  the  dominion  of  the  Black  Sea,  the  possession  of 
the  Crimea  was  deemed  essential ;  and  now  the  last, 
shade  of  the  successors  of  Genghis,  the  former  triumph 
ant  lord  of  Russia,  was  to  surrender  his  sceptre  into 
the  hands  of  the  empress. 

In  the  treaty  of  Kainardghi,  both  parties  bound 
themselves  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  not  to  interfere, 
on  any  pretext  whatever,  in  the  internal  concerns  of 
the  Crimea.  Yet  hardly  had  the  parchments  been  in 
terchanged,  before  Russia  was  already  busy  with  its 
intrigues.  France  was  interested  in  behalf  of  the 
Porte;  both  because  it  furnished  occupation  to  her 
enemies,  and  still  more,  for  the  immense  injury  which 
her  commerce  would  sustain,  by  its  ruin.  Into  all  the 
Turkish  possessions  the  French  might  import  and 
export  every  kind  of  raw  or  manufactured  product, 
paying  a  duty  nominally  of  three,  actually  of  two  and 
a  half  per  cent.  Not  only  other  nations,  the  Turks 


366  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

themselves  paid  a  double,  and  on  some  things,  a 
threefold  greater  duty.  The  coasting  trade  on  the 
Turkish  coast  was  carried  on  in  French  ships,  free 
from  any  duty  or  tax  whatever.  The  French  residing 
in  Turkey,  stood  under  the  sole  jurisdiction  of  their 
own  state.  The  commerce  with  France  was  constantly 
on  the  increase.  At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  the  annual  exports  from  Turkey  to  France 
amounted  to  about  two  millions  of  livres ;  but  in  the 
middle  of  that  century  to  twenty-two  millions ;  and  in 
the  year  1786  to  thirty-eight  millions  eight  hundred 
thousand  livres. 

The  diplomatic  relations  of  the  European  powers 
were  at  this  time  exceedingly  complex.  Prussia  had  an 
intimate  alliance  with  Russia,  and  having  faithfully  ful 
filled  its  obligations  in  the  first  war  between  Russia 
and  Turkey,  believed  itself  now  fairly  entitled  to  a 
reciprocity  of  favor,  to  which  it  was  reluctant  to  relin 
quish  its  claim.  But  Austria,  moved  by  the  prospect  of 
aggrandizement  alike  in  Bavaria  and  in  European 
Turkey,  unfolded  itself  from  the  embrace  of  Frances 
and  fell  into  the  toils  of  Russia ;  France,  left  thus 
alone,  endeavored  to  form  a  new  combination  with 
Prussia,  which  must  first  set  itself  free  from  its 
Northern  ally.  But  insuperable  difficulties  stood  in 
the  way  of  this  last  combination. 

The  principal  aim  of  France  was,  to  defeat  the 
schemes  of  aggrandizement  formed  by  Russia  and  Aus- 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND .  TURKEY.     367 

tria ;  the  principal  aim  of  Frederic,  to  dissolve  the  union 
between-  France  and  Austria,  and  till  there  should  be  a 
rupture  between  those  powers,  he  was  too  cautious  to 
trust  himself  in  an  alliance  with  France.  Yet  while  he 
avoided  appearing  to  counteract  the  schemes  of  Cath 
arine,  he  commanded  his  charge  d'affaires  at  Con 
stantinople,  Baron  von  Gaffron,  not  to  lose  a  good 
opportunity  of  stirring  up  the  Porte  to  resist  the 
ceding  of  the  Crimea  to  Russia,  provided  he  could 
do  so  without  danger  of  being  discovered.  Accord 
ingly  the  envoy  indited  a  most  private  memoire  for 
the  Turkish  minister,  and  gave  it  to  his  drogoman  to 
translate  and  deliver.  The  drogoman,  being  bribed, 
gave  the  memoire  to  the  Russian  ambassador.  To 
justify  himself  against  complaint  and  preserve  the 
appearance  of  innocence,  Frederic  dismissed  Von 
Gaffron  from  office,  and  put  him  in  prison.  Such 
were  the  contingencies  of  European  diplomacy.  Its 
morality  resembled  the  Spartan  principle  about  steal 
ing.  To  play  a  double  part  was  held  a  duty ;  to  be 
discovered,  a  crime. 

While  negotiations  were  conducted  with  careful 
reserve  between  the  Prussian  and  French  govern 
ments,  the  courts  of  Vienna  and  Petersburg!!  were 
not  less  active,  though  their  progress  towards  an 
alliance  met  with  serious  difficulties.  To  Catharine 
the  expulsion  of  the  Turks  was  the  great  purpose; 
to  Joseph  the  Second  it  was  a  secondary  consideration, 


368  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

to  be  made  subservient  to  his  views  on  Bavaria  and 
elsewhere  in  the  West.  He  acceded  to  the  Russian 
policy  to  oblige  the  empress,  that  so  the  empress 
might  in  turn  favor  him.  He  did  not  believe  suc 
cess  against  the  Turks  so  sure  or  easy  as  was 
imagined ;  and  acknowledged  also,  that  the  Austrian 
interest  would  suffer  from  the  capture  of  Constan 
tinople  by  his  northern  rival. 

While  the  great  continental  powers  were  wavenng 
in  their  choice  of  alliances,  Catharine  gained  possession 
of  the  Crimea.  The  convention  of  the  tenth  of  March, 
1779,  confirmed  in  the  most  solemn  manner  the  inde 
pendence  of  this  sovereign  state.  No  foreign  power 
should,  under  any  circumstances  whatever,  demand  of 
it  an  account  of  its  actions ;  Russia  and  the  Porte 
each  promised,  by  all  that  they  acknowledged  as  holy, 
never,  under  any  pretence,  to  interfere  in  its  concerns. 
The  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Grand  Seignior  was 
recognised,  but  was  never  to  extend  to  other  relations. 
Should  either  party  by  any  unforeseen  accident  become 
entangled  in  the  concerns  of  the  Tartars,  it  was  agreed, 
that  no  step  should  be  taken  by  it  without  consulting 
the  other. 

Notwithstanding  these  obligations,  Catharine  took 
part  in  the  troubles  which  soon  broke  out  in  the 
Crimea.  The  new  khan,  Schahin  Gheray,  was  de 
voted  to  the  Russian  empress,  and  trusting  in  her 
protection,  imposed  unwonted  burdens,  violated  estab- 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  369 

iished  usages,  and  pretended  to  be  greatly  enamored 
of  European  culture.  'To  diffuse  this  in  all  its  lustre, 
he  formed  the  resolution  of  having  the  large  Trench 
Encyclopedia  translated  into  the  Tartar  language.  His 
authority  did  not  last  long  enough  to  execute  his  pur 
pose  ;  and  when  Catharine  was  mistress  of  the  destiny 
of  the  Tartars,  in  a  better  spirit  of  toleration,  she  had 
a  beautiful  edition  of  the  Koran  printed  for  the  benefit 
of  her  Mahometan  subjects. 

The  Tartars  revolted,  and  transferred  their  alle 
giance  to  Dewlet  Gheray.  The  Russians  had  not  yet 
withdrawn  their  forces ;  the  Turks,  therefore,  felt 
themselves  justified  in  sending  troops  to  Taman,  to 
relieve  those  who  were  suffering  for  their  religious 
faith.  This  served  Russia  as  a  pretext  for  hostilities, 
and  Prince  Potemkin  undertook  to  conduct  the  affair 
to  its  completion.  Potemkin,  the  most  powerful  man 
in  Russia,  was  little  suited  to  conciliate  either  love  or 
esteem.  The  Grand  Duke,  the  Count  Panin,  and  other 
noblemen  of  the  empire  detested  him.  By  persuading 
Catharine  that  his  services  were  indispensable  to  her 
security,  rather  than  by  the  influence  of  attachment,  he 
gained  entire  sway  over  the  empress  and  the  state,  and 
retained  it  till  his  death.  He  had  no  distinguished 
talents  as  a  commander;  yet  the  whole  army  was 
under  his  control ;  and  all  the  generals  of  greatest 
experience  and  fame  were  subject  to  his  caprice.  He 
understood  but  imperfectly  the  foreign  relations  of  his 
24 


370  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

country  or  the  wants  of  the  interior  ;  and  yet  it  was  he 
who  dictated  to  the  vanity  of  the  empress  the  measures 
to  be  adopted  within  her  immense  dominions  or  towards 
foreign  powers.  Without  elevated  ambition  of  any 
kind,  it  never  occurred  to  him,  that  he  could  do  good 
to  mankind  by  wisely  guiding  the  affairs  of  that  large 
portion  that  depended  on  him.  To  him  nothing  was 
nobler  than  the  honors  that  dazzle  the  beholder ;  his 
whole  soul  was  in  the  gratification  of  his  vanity.  He 
prided  himself  on  his  skill  in  regulating  cavalry,  and 
used  to  boast  of  his  regiment  as  the  finest  in  the 
universe.  His  love  of  display  made  him  fond  of  giving 
peculiar  brilliancy  to  the  ceremonies  of  the  Greek 
Church.  Denying  himself  nothing,  he  indulged  all 
his  whims,  and  wished  to  have  it  known  that  he  could 
do  so.  This  was  to  him  the  great  purpose  of  life.  He 
disregarded  distinctions  of  birth,  of  rank,  of  wealth,  and 
was  always  bent  on  showing  that  he  alone  held  the 
control.  Frederic  the  Second  once  directed  his  ambas 
sador  to  offer  Potemkin  his  influence  in  gaining  for  him 
the  crown  of  Poland ;  Potemkin  replied,  that  he  had 
never  dreamed  of  such  a  matter,  and  did  not  respect 
the  Polish  nation  enough  to  be  willing  to  be  their  king. 
He  treated  the  most  distinguished  foreigners  with 
contumely,  and  listened  to  the  proposals  of  foreign 
ambassadors  with  the  contemptuous  air  of  one  who  but 
just  condescends  to  hear  the  requests  of  his  inferiors 
and  dependents.  Sated  with  pleasure,  he  lavished  the 


THE   WARS    OF   RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  371 

public  treasure  with  boundless  prodigality  in  the  grati 
fication  of  his  caprices.  Catharine  anticipated  all  his 
wants  that  could  be  divined,  and  gave  him  incredibly 
large  sums ;  nevertheless,  he  would  pervert  the  funds 
intrusted  to  him  for  public  purposes,  and  even  forge 
orders  of  the  empress,  to  get  possession  of  money, 
which  he  knew  to  be  peculiarly  needed  by  the  state. 
Poteml^n  took  bribes  from  foreign  princes  to  promote 
their  objects ;  and  his  views  were  so  contracted,  that 
he  could  not  judge  of  the  true  interests  of  the  empire. 
He  used  on  all  occasions  to  set  in  the  most  ridiculous 
light  Frederic's  strict  economy  and  simple  mode  of 
living ;  and  once  when  that  monarch  opposed  a  second 
division  of  Poland  on  account  of  its  injustice,  he  read 
the  king's  letter  three  several  times  and  then  gave  it 
back  to  the  Prussian  minister  with  the  words,  "  I  never 
should  have  believed  that  King  Frederic  had  such  ro 
mantic  notions." 

Though  seizing  immense  treasures,  which  he  care 
lessly  squandered  at  the  gaming-table  or  for  any  fancy,  he 
was  accustomed  never  to  pay  those  who  furnished  him 
with  the  necessaries  of  life.  Merchants  held  them 
selves  ruined,  when  an  order  came  to  supply  the  wants 
of  Potemkin.  He  had  no  sentiment  of  mercy  in  his 
nature,  and  would  torment  without  any  object,  as  if  to 
show  that  he  could  do  so  with  impunity ;  and  he  cared 
as  little  for  human  life  as  for  money,  if  the  waste  of  it 
pleased  his  capricious  humor. 


372  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

Potemkin  has  been  called  a  man  of  colossal  great 
ness.  But  he  was  in  no  wise  great.  His  mind  was 
low  and  coarse.  He  began  his  career  of  success  like 
the  other  favorites,  chance  having  made  him  known  to 
the  empress ;  and  he  confirmed  his  power  by  im 
pudence,  and  insensibility  to  moral  feeling  and  honor. 
He  cared  neither  for  exercising  a  wide  influence  over 
the  destinies  of  men,  nor  for  gaining  an  immortality  of 
fame  •  but  wished  to  live  in  splendor,  have  all  near  him 
at  his  feet,  and  prove  himself  to  be  lifted  above  every 
motive  to  fear.  Such  was  the  man  who  was  employed 
to  annex  the  Crimea. 

"Blood  and  booty"  were  the  watchwords,  as  Po 
temkin  poured  the  Russian  army  into  the  heart  of  the 
dominions  of  the  khan.  Thousands  of  families  were 
destroyed,  or  carried  away  into  bondage  in  remote 
Russian  provinces;  till  finally,  the  khan  and  some 
of  the  royal  tribe  declared  "their  conviction,  that 
happiness  could  be  found  only  under  the  mild  gov 
ernment  of  the  empress,  and  that  they  therefore 
submitted  themselves  and  their  nation  uncondition 
ally  and  for  ever  to  her  authority."  On  the  eighth 
of  April,  1783,  the  empress  issued  her  manifesto, 
that  for  sundry  reasons  therein  given,  "  she  had 
been  induced  to  receive  under  her  authority  the  pen 
insula  of  the  Crimea,  Kuban,  and  the  island  Taman. 
Her  new  subjects  were  exhorted  to  fidelity  and  obe- 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.     373 

dience."  The  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  empress  was 
administered ;  every  refusal  was  punished  with  death. 

As  if  nothing  had  happened,  Catharine  taking  ad 
vantage  of  the  alarm  of  the  Porte  at  her  alliance  with 
Austria,  directly  proposed  and  extorted  a  treaty  01 
commerce  and  amity  with  Turkey,  on  conditions  most 
favorable  to  Russia.  Hardly  had  this  been  effected, 
when  she  proceeded  still  further,  and  demanded  of  the 
Porte  a  recognition  of  her  sovereignty  over  the  Crimea ; 
threatening  war,  and  Austria  joining  her  in  the  threat, 
if  she  received  a  refusal.  The  Porte  yielded,  and  the 
river  Kuban  became  the  acknowledged  boundary  be 
tween  the  Turkish  and  Russian  empires. 

Thus  Russia  tore  from  the  Porte  the  granary  of 
Constantinople,  and  an  outpost  which  had  been  im 
portant  as  a  resource  in  war,  capable  of  furnishing 
excellent  soldiers.  This  province  became  at  once  of 
vast  importance  to  Russia,  for  it  afforded  the  means 
of  conducting  the  most  extensive  commerce.  But 
Catharine  and  Potemkin  both  valued  it  chiefly  as  the 
preparation  for  further  conquest.  At  the  mouth  of 
the  Dnieper  the  empress  caused  a  new  city,  Cherson, 
to  be  built.  The  conquests  received  their  ancient 
name,  the  Tauric  Chersonesus,  or  Taurida,  and  Potem 
kin,  who  obtained  the  appellation  of  the  Taurian,  as 
sumed  the  charge  of  changing  the  Tartars  into  good 
Russian  subjects.  In  the  execution  of  his  office  he 


374  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

knew  no  purpose  beyond  gratifying  his  own  rapacity 
and  the  vanity  of  the  empress.  Constitution,  manners, 
and  established  customs  were  despised ;  justice  was 
made  a  matter  of  purchase;  the  wealthy  were  plun 
dered;  many  fled;  many  were  driven  into  other  Rus 
sian  provinces ;  and  foreigners  were  indiscriminately 
invited  from  all  quarters.  In  former  times,  the  Tartar 
khan  had  joined  the  Turkish  army  with  fifty  thousand 
well  equipped  horsemen ;  two  years  after  the  land  had 
become  an  integral  part  of  the  Russian  empire,  the 
census  of  ah1  the  male  inhabitants  is  said  to  have 
amounted  to  but  seventeen  thousand. 

In  1787,  Catharine  made  to  this  part  of  her 
dominions  a  journey  which  resembled  a  continued 
triumphal  procession.  Potemkin  wished  to  exhibit 
proofs  of  the  rapid  prosperity  of  the  Chersonesus,  and 
the  newly  acquired  provinces.  Palaces  were  therefore 
erected,  though  to  be  occupied  but  for  a  night ;  signs 
of  apparent  prosperity  and  contentment  were  every 
where  hung  out  for  show ;  towns  were  built  and 
people  assembled  to  play  the  part  of  inhabitants  ;  then 
the  houses  were  left  vacant,  and  the  same  people, 
having  been  carried  forward  by  night,  showed  them 
selves  on  the  next  day,  ready  to  act  the  same  thing 
over  on  another  spot.  Music  and  dances  enlivened 
the  hours ;  the  plains,  over  which  the  Tartars  had  so 
recently  sped  their  coursers  amidst  the  loneliness 
of  rude  nature,  resounded  with  strange  notes  of 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.     375 

mirth,  and  glittered  with  the  splendors  of  imperial 
magnificence.  The  deputies  of  a  hundred  subject 
nations  stayed  the  steps  of  the  Semiramis  of  the  North, 
who  was  come  to  receive  their  homage.  The  king 
of  Poland  made  his  appearance  to  gaze  at  the  novel 
spectacle.  Joseph  the  Second  also  hurried  all  the  way 
from  Vienna  to  behold  the  show,  and  the  newly  built 
city,  Cherson,  became  brilliant  with  splendid  festivals, 
given  in  honor  of  his  arrival.  Never  had  the  banks 
of  a  river  flowing  through  a  wilderness  been  made  the 
scene  of  such  revelry.  And  here  in  the  solitary  city 
of  the  desert,  intoxicated  with  triumph,  viewing  with 
contempt  the  withered  energies  of  the  Porte,  and  hold 
ing  out  greedy  hands  to  seize  on  new  diadems,  the 
German  emperor  and  the  Russian  czarina  perfected 
their  scheme  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Turkish  empire, 
and  divided  in  anticipation  their  future  conquests, 
inscribing  over  one  of  the  gates  of  Cherson,  "  This  is 
the  way  to  Byzantium."  "The  Crimea,"  we  quote 
from  a  confidential  letter,  which  Joseph  II.,  immedi 
ately  after  his  visit  to  that  province,  wrote  to  his  own 
minister,  Kaunitz,  "  Taurida,  has  not  any  thing  so  very 
remarkable.  But  nevertheless,  the  advantages  which 
Russia  derives  from  the  acquisition  of  this  province, 
are  very  important.  It  can  reduce  the  Osmanlis  to 
extremities,  after  the  destruction  of  their  fleet;  it  can 
make  Stamboul  tremble ;  it  gains  the  way  to  Paros 
and  the  Hellespont ;  but  there  I  must  by  all  means 


376  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

come  first  on  the  side  of  Rumelia."  The  Austrian 
emperor  read  the  book  of  futurity  well;  but  it  was 
only  a  glance  of  fruitless  covetousness,  which  he  was 
allowed  to  cast  on  Rumelia  and  the  Hellespont. 

VII. 

The  Porte  was  the  aggressor  in  the  seventh  war, 
which  in  August,  1787,  the  year  of  Catharine's  visit  to 
Cherson,  was  declared  against  its  overshadowing  neigh 
bor,  and  began  with  unusually  favorable  auspices. 
Asia  poured  out  its  thousands  to  be  arranged  under 
the  banners  of  the  grand  vizier,  and  almost  ten  thou 
sand  seamen  had  been  impressed  from  the  islands 
of  the  Archipelago  alone.  The  army  of  the  Turks 
amounted  to  about  450,000  men,  of  whom  about  one 
half  were  cavalry.  Russia  and  Austria  were,  indeed,  in 
union ;  but  Poland,  now  in  a  state  of  anarchy  and  civil 
feuds,  engaged  the  immediate  attention,  and  divided  the 
ambition  of  Catharine;  Sweden  assumed  a  lowering 
aspect ;  England  and  Prussia  were  averse  to  the 
diminution  of  the  Ottoman  power;  the  reforms  of 
Joseph  II.  were  exciting  discontents  throughout  his 
dominions ;  and  the  Russian  empress  would  gladly 
have  avoided  a  rupture,  and  foregone  the  gorgeous 
vision  of  a  Grecian  empire. 

The  war  opened  with  attempts  of  the  Turks  to 
recover  Kinburn,  and  thus  reconquer  the  Crimea. 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.      377 

But  Suwarrow  was  there,  and  their  enthusiasm  was 
fruitless.  Once,  indeed,  during  the  attack,  the  Rus 
sians  were  obliged  to  fly ;  but  Suwarrow,  who  was  in 
the  foremost  ranks,  galloped  after  the  fugitives,  and 
throwing  himself  upon  the  earth,  cried  out,  "  Run,  ye 
rascals,  do  but  run  ;  here  will  I  alone  be  cut  in  pieces." 
Fired  by  his  words,  the  Russians  rallied,  the  front  was 
formed  anew,  and  the  enemy's  troops  were  dislodged 
from  their  intrenchments  with  the  loss  of  all  but  about 
five  hundred  men.  This  was  the  only  occasion,  during 
the  war,  on  which  the  Turks  were  able  to  act  as  aggres 
sors. 

The  Austrian  campaign  of  1788  was  one  of  great 
loss  and  disgrace.  Joseph  II.,  with  a  passion  for  being 
esteemed  a  great  warrior,  had  not  one  of  the  qualities 
of  a  general;  neither  coolness,  nor  prompt  decision, 
nor  firmness.  A  mistaken  humanity  left  his  army 
to  waste  away  by  disease,  without  undertaking  any 
decisive  exploit;  and  he  is  supposed  to  have  lost 
more  men  from  his  tenderness  and  irresolution,  than  a 
bolder  commander  would  have  done  in  an  active  cam 
paign. 

The  emperor  was  always  employed,  by  day  with 
the  concerns  of  war,  by  night  with  the  civil  adminis 
tration.  He  exposed  his  own  person  fearlessly,  but 
spared  his  troops.  His  care  for  then'  supplies  was 
exemplary.  His  own  dress  was  simple ;  his  table 


378  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

frugally  supplied;  and,  as  for  his  lodging,  he  some 
times  occupied  an  ordinary  hut,  sometimes  slept  upon 
the  ground.  He  made  every  personal  sacrifice;  but 
the  gallantry  of  his  officers  did  not  save  him  from  the 
results  of  his  own  want  of  judgment.  The  emperor 
expected  confidently  a  battle  and  a  victory ;  and  in 
stead  of  it,  on  the  night  following  the  twentieth  of  Sep 
tember,  he  was  involved  in  a  disorderly  retreat,  which 
quenched  his  military  vanity,  destroyed  his  reputation 
as  a  commander,  and  left  in  him  the  seeds  of  a  mortal 
disease. 

Quite  different  were  the  results  in  Moldavia,  where 
the  Austrians,  under  Coburg,  united  with  the  Russians, 
and  reduced  Choczim.  Meantime,  the  attention  of 
Potemkin  had  been  directed  to  Otchakov,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Dnieper.  In  the  naval  battles  which  preceded 
the  siege,  Paul  Jones  acted  as  rear-admiral,  and  ad 
vanced  his  fame  for  coolness,  intrepidity,  and  skill. 
The  possession  of  the  place  itself  was  important  to 
Russia,  for  its  recent  acquisitions  would  thus  be  effec 
tually  secured  from  attack.  It  was  at  last,  after  a  siege 
of  nearly  six  months,  taken  by  storm  on  the  seven 
teenth  of  December,  the  day  of  St.  Nicholas.  It  cost 
the  lives  of  about  9,500  Turks  and  of  2,700  Russians. 
The  Russians  obtained  the  entire  mastery  of  the  city  in 
about  one  hour  and  a  quarter ;  and  it  has  ever  since 
constituted  a  portion  of  the  Russian  empire. 

In  the  midst  of  this  victorious  career,  Gustavus  III., 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.      379 

instigated  in  part  by  his  own  ambition,  in  part  by  Eng 
land  and  Prussia,  made  a  sudden,  and,  to  Catharine,  a 
most  unexpected  attack  on  Russia.  This  invasion 
divided  the  forces  of  the  empress,  but  was  resisted  with 
admirable  dignity ;  and  after  a  conflict  of  more  than 
two  years,  she  compelled  her  voluntary  aggressor  to 
recede.  All  the  while  the  war  against  Turkey  was 
continued  without  interruption. 

The  campaign  of  1789  was  attended  by  great 
results  both  for  Austria  and  Russia.  Gallatz,  Acker- 
mann,  and  Bender,  were  taken  by  the  latter.  But  the 
great  event  of  the  campaign,  was  the  battle  of  Mar- 
tinestie,  on  the  Rimnik,  in  which  about  21,000  Rus 
sians  and  Austrians,  after  a  fierce  strife  of  eleven  hours, 
gained  an  entire  victory  over  an  army  of  nearly  100,000 
Turks.  Princs  Coburg  had  been  nearly  surrounded. 
He  wrote  a  despatch  to  Suwarrow,  and  desired  him  to 
effect  a  junction.  Suwarrow  tore  a  scrap  from  the 
letter,  scrawled  the  words,  "  I'll  come,"  and  in  a 
twinkling  sent  the  messenger  back,  following  just  in 
time  to  be  present  at  the  engagement.  The  prince 
solicited  him  to  allow  his  troops  some  rest  before  fight 
ing.  "  My  men,"  replied  he,  "  need  no  repose  ;  St. 
Nicholas  before  me,  myself  following  the  saint,  and  my 
soldiers  following  me,  let  us  attack  the  foe."  The  vic 
tory  was  one  of  the  greatest  ever  gained  by  an  Austrian 
general,  and  was  won  by  a  wise  disposition  of  the  artil 
lery,  and  extraordinary  coolness  and  rapidity  in  con- 


380  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

centrating  forces  on  the  disputed  points.  Coburg 
spent  the  winter  in  Bucharest.  London,  on  the  other 
side,  succeeded  in  taking  Belgrade ;  the  siege  of  Or- 
sova  was  commenced,  and  the  year  came  to  an  end 
under  circumstances  which  seemed  to  leave  hardly  one 
strong  place,  or  one  effectual  barrier,  between  Belgrade 
and  Constantinople. 

The  death  of  Joseph  II.,  in  the  spring  of  1790,  left 
Russia  to  continue  her  career  of  victory  alone.  Not 
daunted  by  the  desertion  of  its  ally,  Potemkin  com 
pleted  the  conquest  of  Bessarabia.  The  object  of  the 
Russians,  in  this  campaign,  was  to  defend  the  Crimea, 
and  by  driving  the  Turks  from  the  right  bank  of  the 
Danube,  to  gain  the  ability  of  prescribing  the  terms  of 
peace.  To  this  end  Kilianova  was  taken,  and  the 
mouth  of  the  Danube  occupied,  and  at  last  the  siege  of 
Ismail  was  regularly  commenced  by  the  main  army  of 
the  Russians  under  Potemkin.  It  had  lasted  more 
than  seven  months,  and  little  impression  was  made. 
Potemkin  was  with  his  women,  who  amused  them 
selves  by  drawing  cards  and  telling  fortunes.  "  I  pre 
dict,"  said  one  of  them  to  him,  "  you  will  take  Ismail 
in  ten  days." — "  I  know  an  oracle  much  surer  than 
that,"  said  Potemkin,  and  issued  an  order  to  Suwarrow 
to  take  it  within  three.  On  the  evening  before  the 
storming,  Suwarrow  addressed  the  .troops  in  these 
words  :  "  To-morrow  early,  an  hour  before  day,  I  shall 
get  up,  shall  say  my  prayers,  wash  myself,  dress  myself, 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA   AND    TURKEY. 

« 

then  I  shall  crow  like  a  cock,  and  do  you  storm  accord 
ing  to  my  directions."  It  was  done.  The  Russians  lost 
15,000  men  in  the  assault  of  the  city  and  avenged  their 
loss  in  the  blood  of  35,000  Turks.  The  Russian  eagle 
was  finally  planted  in  triumph  on  its  walls,  and  Suwar- 
row  obtained  a  glory  for  the  massacre  of  myriads,  far 
transcending  that  of  the  bloody  Poliorcetes  of  antiquity. 
At  the  negotiations  for  peace  the  diplomacy  of 
Russia  and  Austria  were  in  contrast.  A  few  months 
before  the  death  of  Joseph  II.,  Prussia  formed  a  strict 
alliance  with  the  Porte,  and  assumed  a  menacing 
attitude  towards  Austria.  Thus,  when  Leopold  II. 
came  to  the  throne  of  Austria,  he  found  a  hostile 
spirit  in  Prussia,  already  ripe  for  action ;  Hungary 
was  still  heaving  with  discontent  ;  the  Austrian 
Netherlands  were  in  open  revolt ;  in  various  parts 
of  his  states,  dissatisfaction  prevailed ;  the  season  was 
one  of  scarcity ;  the  finances  were  exhausted ;  his 
own  election  as  emperor  of  Germany  not  having 
been  secured,  the  German  empire  was  without  a  head ; 
France  was  in  a  state  of  revolution,  which  foreboded  a 
general  crisis ;  and  England  held  a  peace  as  the  price 
of  its  friendship.  Besides,  he  was  himself  of  a  mild 
character,  and  willing  to  give  repose  to  the  many 
nations  which  now  acknowledged  his  sway.  At  the 

• 

congress  of  Reichenbach,  which  opened  in  1790,  Prus 
sia,  England,  and  Holland,  as  mediating  powers,  dictated 
to  Leopold  the  strict  status  quo  as  the  condition  of  the 


3S2  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

% 

peace,  which  was  concluded  in  the  following  year  be 
tween  Austria  and  the  Porte.  What  a  contrast  with 
the  proud  anticipations  of  Joseph  II.,  but  three  years 
before,  in  his  interviews  with  Catharine  at  Cherson  ! 
He  had  wasted  the  strength  of  his  empire,  sacrificed 
his  reputation  as  a  military  man,  and  prepared  his  own 
grave,  without  securing  to  his  successor  one  single  ad 
vantage,  or  bringing  to  reality  any  one  of  his  schemes. 
Deserted  by  Austria,  Russia  was  left  alone.  Swe 
den  had  been  let  loose  upon  her  from  the  north ;  Pitt 
equipped  a  fleet  to  give  force  to  the  intervention  of 
England;  Prussia  had  undertaken  the  guarantee  *of 
the  possessions  of  Turkey ;  France  and  Spain,  so  long 
as  they  could,  had  likewise  been  active  against  the 
empress ;  her  treasury  was  exhausted ;  her  general 
issimo,  Potemkin,  enfeebled  and  dying ;  and,  what 
interested  the  cabinet  of  Petersburgh  most  of  all, 
the  anarchy  of  Poland  had  reached  its  crisis.  Yet 
in  the  midst  of  all  these  difficulties,  the  empress 
maintained  her  purpose  of  terminating  the  contest 
without  foreign  mediation.  Preliminaries  were  signed 
in  August,  1791,  and  were  changed  into  a  definite 
peace  in  January,  1792.  Russia  kept  possession  of 
the  district  between  the  Dnieper  and  the  Dniester, 
retained  the  Crimea  and  Kuban,  and  on  these  condi 
tions,  consented  to  restore  all  other  conquests.  So 
lightly  did  Catharine,  even  while  she  longed  for  peace, 
hold  the  threats  of  England  and  the  guaranties  of 


THE    WARS    OF   RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  383 

Prussia.  Thus  did  she  secure  to  her  empire  all  the 
coast  from  the  Kuban  to  the  Dniester,  and  annex  to  it 
the  deserts,  where  Odessa  was  soon  to  bloom. 

Count  Suwarrow,  who  with  Potemkin  conducted 
the  Russian  armies  during  the  war,  was  one  of  the 
extraordinary  men  of  his  age.  If  he  had  not  conjoined 
the  talent  of  inspiring  unlimited  confidence,  his  man 
ners  would  have  made  him  pass  for  a  whimsical 
buffoon;  and  had  he  not  been  successful,  he  would 
have  been  known  only  for  foolhardiness  and  savage 
intrepidity.  He  was  a  powerful  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  others ;  a  soldier  panting  for  bloodshed  and 
the  honors  of  victory ;  at  Ismail,  Warsaw,  and  among 
the  Alps,  alike  indifferent  to  the  cause  which  he  de 
fended,  or  the  lives  which  he  sacrificed.  He  possessed 
the  great  qualities  of  a  soldier ;  a  keen  eye,  sagacity, 
prompt  decision,  and  unsuspected  fearlessness.  His 
motto  was,  "Forwards  and  fight."  "A  general,"  he 
would  say,  "  should  be  at  the  head  of  an  army,  not  at 
its  tail ; "  and  on  the  day  of  battle,  he  might  be  found 
in  the  very  hottest  of  the  fray.  He  was  of  a  restless 
and  feverish  activity ;  and  in  Italy,  the  French  found 
him  equally  fertile  in  invention  and  alert  in  execution. 

His  wrath  was  fierce  and  ungovernable,  sometimes 
bitterly  insolent,  sometimes  passionately  cruel.  Yet  he 
loved  freedom  of  speech  in  his  intercourse  with  others  ; 
and  it  is  related  of  him,  that  one  day  when  in  a 
gust  of  anger  he  was  beating  a  soldier  unmercifully,  a 


384  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

young  officer,  who  stood  near,  cried  out,  "  The  field- 
marshal  Suwarrow  commands  us  not  to  give  way  to 
our  anger."  "  The  field-marshal  Suwarrow  must  be 
obeyed,"  replied  he,  and  stopped  cudgelling  imme 
diately.  In  his  habits  he  was  an  ascetic.  He  slept  on 
straw,  or  on  hay,  even  in  the  period  of  his  princely 
fortunes.  Whatever  furniture  he  found  in  a  room 
which  he  was  to  occupy,  he  was  apt  to  dash  in  pieces. 
Especially  he  would  break  all  mirrors.  Sometimes  he 
would  take  out  the  windows  ;  "  Suwarrow  is  not  afraid 
of  cold."  Sometimes  he  would  unhinge  the  doors  and 
throw  them  away ;  "  Nobody  dares  come  into  the 
same  apartment  with  Suwarrow."  He  respected  Rus 
sian  usages.  When  Paul  wished  to  change  the  uniform 
of  the  Russian  troops,  and  introduce  the  custom  of 
wearing  long  hair,  Suwarrow  would  not  co-operate  in 
effecting  the  change.  "  Cues  are  not  pikes,  nor  curls 
cannon,"  was  his  justification.  On  Sundays  and  on 
holidays  he  would  read  to  his  men  out  of  books  of  de 
votion  ;  was  himself  exact  in  the  duty  of  prayer ;  and 
if  he  met  a  monk  or  a  priest,  would  kiss  his  hands 
and  beg  a  blessing.  He  never  gave  the  signal  for 
battle  without  making  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  kiss 
ing  the  image  of  St.  Nicholas.  He  wTould  worship 
relics;  drink  consecrated  water;  and  eat  consecrated 
bread,  yet  with  such  gestures  and  grimaces,  that  his 
devotion  seemed  the  display  of  a  merry-andrew.  He 
knew  how  to  inspire  his  soldiers  with  a  national  fanat- 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.      385 

icism,  and  made  them  believe,  that  if  they  died  in 
fighting  his  battles,  they  would  immediately  return  to 
life  without  grief  in  the  places  that  were  dearest  to 
them.  In  his  speech,  Suwarrow  was  blunt  and  odd ; 
was  fond  of  short,  pithy  sayings ;  and  occasionally 
issued  orders  in  doggrel  rhyme.  Even  his  reports 
and  despatches  to  the  empress  were  sometimes  written 
in  a  sort  of  jingle.  His  public  honors  were  as  sin 
gular  as  his  character.  Beside  magnificent  presents 
of  diamonds,  of  which  the  ill-dressed  warrior  was  very 
proud,  Catharine  rewarded  him,  after  the  Roman 
fashion,  with  the  surname  of  Rimnitski ;  and  Paul 
made  him  a  prince,  with  the  name  of  Italinski,  just 
as  Scipio  of  old  took  the  name  of  Africanus,  from  the 
scene  of  his  victories.  An  imperial  ukase  was  also 
issued,  proclaiming  him  the  greatest  general  of  all 
time.  And  yet  to  us  Suwarrow  seems  no  better  than 
an  inferior  Attila,  who  only  needed  to  possess  undis 
puted  power  over  another  race  of  Huns,  to  have  swept 
from  the  world  the  fairest  monuments  of  civil  liberty. 
His  memory  is  perpetuated  by  the  massacres  of  Ismail 
and  Praga ;  and  Carnage  may  claim  him  as  her  favor 
ite  son. 

VIII. 

We  have  spoken  thus  far  only  of  wars  between  the 
Turks  and  Russians.  Did  they  never,  during  their 
long  course  of  existence,  range  themselves  in  union 

under  the  same  banners  ?     Has  the  silver  crescent  on 
25 


386  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

its  shield  of  green,  never  once  been  raised  in  harmony 
with  the  triple  crown  of  the  two-headed  eagle  ? 
Among  the  countless  variety  of  human  interests,  was 
there  never  one  in  which  the  ambition  of  both  powers 
found  a  common  purpose  ?  Once,  and  yet  only  once, 
the  armies  of  the  Czar  and  the  caliph  met  in  alliance, 
achieved  a  joint  victory  and  entered  a  city  in  company 
and  in  triumph,  to  restore  an  exiled  sovereign.  That 
city  was  Rome ;  that  sovereign  was  the  Pope.  An  Eng 
lish  squadron  appeared  in  the  harbor  of  Civita  Vecchia, 
while  Russians  and  Turks  assisted  at  the  siege  of 
Ancona.  Success  ensued  on  each  side  of  the  Ap 
ennines,  till  all  three  nations,  as  they  advanced  from 
either  shore,  assembled  in  the  Eternal  City ;  and  English, 
Russians,  and  Turks,  heretics,  schismatics,  and  unbe 
lievers,  conspired  to  restore  the  apostolic  see. 

The  last  war  of  the  Porte  against  Catharine  had 
cost  the  sublime  sultan  the  lives  of  more  than  a  million 
of  men,  had  spread  discontent  through  his  provinces, 
and,  finally,  as  we  have  seen,  but  for  the  influence  of 
Prussia  on  Austria,  and  but  for  the  more  inviting  scene 
of  conquest  opened  in  Poland,  would  have  left  his  em 
pire  at  the  mercy  of  the  victor.  For  some  years,  the 
policy  of  France  and  England,  and,  we  may  add, 
of  Russia,  towards  the  sovereign  of  Constantino 
ple,  was  singularly  wavering.  A  series  of  revolu 
tions  in  the  heart  of  Europe,  far  beyond  the  reach  or 
the  cognizance  of  the  Ottoman  divan,  had  recovered 


THE    WARS    OP   RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  387 

Egypt  from  French  dominion,  and  had  contributed  to 
the  erection  of  the  republic  of  the  seven  islands,  under 
the  protection  of  the  Porte,  and  the  guarantee  of 
Russia.  At  times,  the  three  great  powers,  within 
the  short  space  of  seven  or  eight  years,  stood,  each 
for  itself,  in  a  hostile  attitude  towards  the  sultan; 
and,  during  the  same  period,  had  vied  with  each  other 
in  courting  his  friendship,  and  offering  strict  guaran 
tees  of  his  entire  possessions. 

The  peace  of  Presburgh,  in  1805,  between  Austria 
and  Prance,  gave  up  to  Napoleon  the  province  of  Dal- 
matia,  bordering  on  the  Turkish  empire,  and  made  the 
condition  of  that  empire  more  precarious  than  ever. 
Yet,  in  the  following  year,  the  divan,  influenced  by 
the  successes  of  the  French  in  the  north  of  Europe, 
abandoned  its  friendly  connexion  with  Russia,  which 
had  been  renewed  but  the  year  before,  and,  despatch 
ing  a  splendid  embassy  to  Paris,  courted  an  alliance 
with  France. 

The  presence  of  Sebastiani  in  Constantinople  made 
the  influence  of  Napoleon  paramount ;  and  brought  in 
its  train  the  hostility  of  England.  France  and  Tur 
key  having  formed  a  connexion,  England  and  Russia 
were  driven  to  an  alliance  by  a  common  repulsion. 
When  hostilities  between  France  and  Prussia  were 
renewed,  Russia's  armies  invaded  Moldavia  without 
any  previous  announcement,  and  in  the  same  year, 


388  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

1806,  entered  Bucharest  in  triumph;  while  the  insur 
gent  Servians  attacked  and  took  Belgrade. 

The  divan  made  a  formal  declaration  of  war,  the 
eighth  against  Russia,  on  the  seventh  of  January, 
1807  ;  and,  encouraged  by  the  rapid  victories  of 
Napoleon,  prohibited  to  all  vessels  the  navigation 
through  the  Dardanelles.  The  blow  was  aimed  at 
Great  Britain,  and  brought  a  British  fleet  into  the 
harbor  of  Constantinople.  The  English  admiral  de 
manded  the  surrender  of  the  castles  of  the  Dardanelles, 
the  surrender  of  the  Turkish  navy  of  twenty-one 
ships  of  the  line,  a  declaration  of  war  against  France, 
and  the  cession  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia  to  Russia. 
Failing  at  Constantinople,  the  fleet  withdrew,  and  sub 
sequently  made  an  adventurous  and  ultimately  fruitless 
invasion  of  Egypt. 

But  the  course  of  the  war  was  to  be  influenced  by 
other  events  than  the  issue  of  Russian  and  Turkish 
arms.  Of  the  fifteen  grand  sultans  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  Selim  III.  was  the  most  intelligent.  He 
knew  the  weakness  of  his  empire,  but  desired  to 
renovate  it.  Peter  I.  of  Russia  had  moulded  the 
rising  energies  of  a  nation ;  Selim  III.  had  the  harder 
task  to  check  decay.  Deficient  in  firmness  of  char 
acter,  he  adopted  a  partial  reform.  He  left  to  the 
janizaries  their  strength,  but  formed  also  an  army, 
which  was  to  exist  by  the  side  of  the  ancient  forces,  and 
which  was  disciplined  according  to  the  rules  of  Euro- 


THE   AVARS    OF   RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  389 

pean  tactics.  He  was  also  carried  away  by  a  romantic 
admiration  for  Napoleon ;  and  his  intimacy  with  Sebas- 
tiani,  whom  he  permitted  to  enter  the  sacred  interior 
of  the  seraglio,  offended  the  stern  pride  of  the  con 
firmed  Mahometan  bigots.  Suddenly,  on  the  twenty- 
eighth  of  May,  1807,  an  insurrection  began.  On  the 
twenty-ninth  the  unhappy  Selim  endeavored  to  pacify 
the  wild  mass  of  insurgents  by  concessions,  assenting 
even  to  the  death  of  his  ministers  who  were  favorable 
to  reform.  But  he  sacrificed  his  consistency  without 
securing  his  liberty.  When  the  mufti  joined  in  the 
attempt  to  depose  the  sovereign,  Selim,  finding  resist 
ance  useless,  bade  adieu  to  his  attendants,  and  repairing 
to  the  apartments  which  were  henceforward  to  be  his 
prison,  consoled  his  captivity  by  singing  the  story  of 
his  fall. 

The  nephew  of  Selim,  the  weak  and  ignorant 
Mustapha  IV.,  was  raised  to  the  throne.  The  newly 
organized  army  was  disbanded ;  and  a  reaction  began 
to  exterminate  every  trace  of  reform.  Thus,  by  an 
archy,  and  the  consequences  of  the  disastrous  tumults 
in  its  interior,  the  Ottoman  state  lost  the  opportunity 
of  attacking  Russia,  at  the  time  when  she  was  suffering 
from  the  battles  of  Eylau  and  Friedland. 

The  peace  of  Tilsit  contained  a  clause  providing 
for  an  armistice  with  the  Porte.  The  Russians  were 
immediately  to  evacuate  Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  into 
which  the  Turks  were  not  to  enter  till  the  conclusion 


390  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. . 

of  the  peace.  In  consequence  of  this  clause,  Russia 
made  a  truce  at  Sloboja  with  the  Porte,  on  the  twenty- 
fourth  of  August,  1807.  But  peace  did  not  ensue  on 
the  armistice,  nor  did  Russia  evacuate  the  provinces. 

The  truce  continued,  as  if  by  common  consent,  and 
without  any  express  stipulations,  till  the  year  1809. 
During  that  period,  a  new,  more  fatal,  and  more 
bloody  revolution,  had  sent  to  the  grave  every  male 
descendant  of  Osman  but  one. 

The  pacha  of  Rutschuk,  Mustapha  Bairactar,  a 
personal  friend  of  the  deposed  monarch,  a  strenuous  ad 
vocate  for  the  party  of  reform,  and  enemy  to  the  pre 
vailing  system  of  reaction,  determined  to  set  aside  the 
effeminate  Mustapha  IV.  and  raise  Selim  once  more  to 
power.  At  Adrianople  he  was  joined  by  the  grand 
vizier;  and  with  about  thirty-six  thousand  men  they 
marched  upon  the  capital,  under  the  banner  of  Ma 
homet.  The  sultan  endeavored  to  win  Bairactar  by 
appointing  him  to  the  chief  command  of  his  armies. 
But  the  leader  of  the  invasion  would  not  be  diverted 
from  his  purpose.  Having  first  confirmed  his  military 
strength,  he  assembled  the  divan,  the  mufti,  the  leader 
of  the  janizaries,  and  the  ulemas ;  took  from  the  hes 
itating  grand  vizier  the  seals  of  office  and  put  him  in 
chains;  and  then  sent  the  mufti,  and  the  aga'of  the 
janizaries,  to  demand  the  restoration  of  the  throne  to 
Selim.  By  the  advice  of  the  mufti,  Mustapha  IV. 
immediately  ordered  Selim  to  be  executed.  When 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.      391 

Bairactar  appeared  at  the  inner  gates  of  the  seraglio, 
and  received  the  mangled  and  mutilated  corpse  of  his 
benefactor,  whom  he  had  expected  to  restore,  grief 
stayed  his  revenge  but  for  a  moment.  Mustapha  IV. 
was  deposed,  and  his  younger  brother  Mahmoud  II. 
was  girded  with  the  sword  of  the  Prophet.  The  grand 
vizier  and  the  mufti  were  thrown  into  the  Bosphorus  ; 
the  chief  of  the  eunuchs,  and  those  who  assisted  in 
murdering  Selim,  were  hanged.  The  remains  of  Se- 
Km  were  interred  with  great  pomp. 

The  office  of  grand  vizier  was  conferred  on  the 
author  of  the  revolution ;  and  the  way  seemed  open  to 
the  regeneration  of  the  state.  Bairactar  enjoined  new 
levies  and  warlike  preparations.  He  restored  in  the 
army  European  tactics  and  discipline  ;  he  increased  the 
military  subordination ;  he  allayed  the  private  feuds  of 
the  pachas,  and  made  them  all  swear  that  they  would 
contend  only  for  the  defence  of  the  empire.  He 
caused  the  youthful  sultan  to  appear  in  the  divan, 
and  take  part  in  the  public  business  ;  and  he  spread 
through  the  provinces  a  fear  which  promised  the 
restoration  of  order  and  the  return  of  security. 

Thus  there  were  two  parties  at  Constantinople. 
The  one  favored  an  approximation  to  European 
culture,  and  held  office  under  a  sultan  who  was  a 
creature  of  their  own.  But  the  advocates  of  unreformed 
Mahometanism  were  still  secretly  active  and  powerful. 
On  the  fourteenth  of  November,  the  anniversary  of 


392  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

the  day  on  which  the  Koran  is  said  to  have  descended 
from  heaven,  a  counter-revolution  -was  begun.  Bair- 
actar,  fearing  he  should  be  overpowered,  put  to  death 
the  late  sultan  Mustapha  IV.  and  his  mother.  He  was 
himself  driven  to  his  own  palace ;  and  there,  retiring 
to  a  tower,  blew  himself  into  the  air ;  or,  as  some  say, 
was  suffocated  by  the  flames.  A  furious  battle  was 
fought  round  the  seraglio,  between  the  supporters  of  the 
ancient  and  the  new  order.  Thrice  the  janizaries  were 
repelled  with  a  loss  of  three  thousand  men.  The 
capudan  pacha,  taking  sides  with  the  party  for  reform, 
bombarded  the  town.  The  palace  of  the  sultan  took 
fire.  The  flames  spread  to  the  city.  At  last  Mah- 
mpud  II.,  perhaps  deserted  by  his  counsellors,  perhaps 
concerned  for  his  life,  perhaps  seeing  no  alternative, 
yielded  to  the  rebellion,  and  promised  the  janizaries  all 
they  would  ask. 

Thus  the  great  question  of  a  change  in  the  political 
system  of  the  Porte,  was  decided  for  the  present  by  an 
insurrection  in  the  streets  of  Constantinople.  The 
fierceness  of  the  contest  proved  that  the  friends  of 
reform  were  already  numerous ;  and  they  fell,  rather 
from  too  great  confidence  in  their  strength,  and  the 
want  of  ability  on  the  part  of  the  sultan,  than  from  an 
actual  inferiority  in  their  resources.  The  person  of  Ihe 
•monarch  was  sacred,  because  he  stood  alone ;  the  sole 
descendant  of  the  race  of  Osman ;  caliph  and  grand 
sultan  without  a  rival;  and  at  that  time  without  an 


THE  WARS  OF  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY.      393 

heir.  The  monarch  of  the  Turks,  in  spite  of  the  insti 
tution  of  polygamy,  was  an  isolated  being.  There 
was  not  on  earth  one  man  in  whose  veins  flowed  the 
blood  of  his  family. 

A  sultan,  ruled  by  a  lawless  body  of  military  in 
surgents,  promised  no  great  display  of  external  strength. 
The  congress  of  Erfurt,  and  the  events  which  preceded 
it,  changed  the  relative  position  of  the  powers  of 
Europe.  When  France  formed  an  alliance  with  Russia, 
the  Porte,  no  longer  attracted  to  Napoleon,  was  left 
to  a  new  combination  with  England,  with  which  power 
a  treaty  was  concluded  on  the  fifth  of  January,  1809. 
The  year  1808  had  been  signalized  by  a  war  between 
Gustavus  IV.  of  Sweden  and  Alexander.  The  peace 
of  1809  gave  to  Russia  the  province  of  Finland,  and 
secured  her  for  ever  against  invasion  from  the  north. 

Alexander,  on  his  return  from  Erfurt,  opened  a 
congress  with  the  Porte.  The  Turks  knew  that  they 
were  abandoned  by  France,  when,  the  Russian  embassy 
demanded  the  cession  of  all  the  land  beyond  the 
Danube ;  but,  trusting  to  the  alliance  with  the  Eng 
lish,  they  ventured  to  renew  the  war  for  three  cam 
paigns.  The  political  relations  of  the  great  powers 
decided  more  than  battles.  The  Danube  and  its 
fortresses  offered  an  obstacle  to  the  Russian  arms,  far 
less  formidable  than  the  mountains  of  the  Ha3nms.  In 
1811,  the  Russians  retreated  beyond  the  Danube;  the 
Turks  pursued,  only  to  be  entirely  defeated;  and 


394  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

their  camp  at  Rutschuk  was  taken  by  storm.  This  led 
to  a  peace,  for  Prance  and  Russia  having  again  become 
divided,  the  Porte  was  swayed  by  the  counsels  of  Eng 
land  ;  and  in  spite  of  the  treaty,  by  which  Prance  and 
Austria  had  mutually  guarantied  the  integrity  of  the 
dominions  of  Turkey,  the  Pruth  and  the  Danube  be 
came  the  boundaries  of  Russia,  which  thus  gained 
Bessarabia,  and  the  third  part  of  Moldavia,  together 
with  the  control  of  the  natural  channel  of  Hungarian 
commerce. 

IX. 

The  ninth  war  between  Russia  and  the  Porte, 
declared  by  Russia  in  April,  1828,  was  far  less 
protracted  than  those  of  the  last  century.  Mag 
nificent  hopes  of  change  and  appalling  victories  had 
prepared  its  way.  It  did,  indeed,  seem  at  first, 
as  if  the  civilized  world  were  arming  its  moral  force, 
to  rescue  from  an  uncertain  slavery  Christian  states 
which  had  so  long  been  the  victims  of  despotism. 
The  insurrection  of  the  Greeks  gave  a  pious  aspect 
to  the  foreign  influence  which  was  invoked  against 
the  ruthless  revenge,  attending  Ottoman  successes. 
Philanthropists  in  both  hemispheres  almost  persuad 
ed  themselves  that  the  Turkish  sovereignty  stood 
arraigned  before  the  grand  inquest  of  nations ;  the 
sentence  of  exclusion  from  the  benefit  of  human 
sympathies  was  pronounced;  and  the  legions  of  the 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  395 

north  were  summoned  as  the  ministers  of  retributive 
justice. 

But  as  the  contest  advanced,  a  consideration  of  im 
portant  interests,  such  as  had  led,  in  the  former  centu 
ries,  to  repeated  collisions,  began  to  resume  and  to 
exercise  an  overwhelming  influence.  The  eyes  of  men 
had  been  dazzled,  and  their  hearts  confounded,  by  the 
protracted  wars  and  intricate  negotiations  which  had 
grown  out  of  the  French  revolution.  That  momentous 
event  had  seemed  to  interrupt  the  continuity  of  his 
tory  ;  and  appeared,  like  a  dark  and  unexplored  gulf, 
separating  the  past  and  the  future.  But  at  last  the 
nations  came  to  be  at  rest ;  and  even  the  tremulous 
motions,  which  had  followed  the  fierce  agitation,  began 
to  be  tranquillized.  Old  sympathies  and  objects  of 
ambition  revived ;  and  purposes,  which  Russia  had  for 
more  than  a  century  been  desirous  of  executing,  were 
hurried  to  maturity  by  fortunate  circumstances,  and  a 
dexterous  use  of  unforeseen  opportunities. 

Not  the  failure  of  an  entire  compliance  with  some 
points  in  the  treaty  of  Bucharest,  not  the  frustrated 
negotiations  of  Ackermann,  not  a  returning  sympathy 
with  the  subjugated  and  dismembered  kingdom  of 
,  Servia,  not  an  enthusiasm  for  enfranchising  Greece, 
precipitated  the  struggle.  The  main  terms  of  the 
treaty  of  Bucharest  had  been  fulfilled ;  the  Servians, 
however  reluctantly,  had  been  abandoned  to  them 
selves  ;  and  insurgent  Greece  could  for  a  long  time 


396  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

find  no  hearing  in  the  cabinets  of  legitimate  sove 
reignty. 

But  for  more  than  a  century,  it  had  been  the 
deliberate  aim  of  Russia,  to  command  the  Euxine, 
to  have  an  absolutely  free  communication  with  the 
Mediterranean,  and  to  wrest  from  the  Turkish  sceptre 
its  provinces  beyond  the  Danube. 

Alexander,  in  his  day,  steadily  pursued  it,  when 
ever  his  relations  with  Prance  permitted ;  and  during 
his  war  with  Turkey,  repeatedly  refused  to  make 
peace,  except  it  were  purchased  with  the  cession  of 
the  Principalities.  It  was  under  the  auspices  of 
Nicholas  that  the  Ottoman  territory  was  actually 
invaded,  after  nine  years  of  preparation. 

The  events  attending  the  short  struggle,  proved 
alike  the  desire  and  the  inability  of  some  of  the  leading 
European  powers  to  interfere.  England  was  never  so 
much  at  a  loss  for  instruments  to  check  Russian 
aggrandizement.  Prussia,  which  had  used  its  influ 
ence  against  Joseph  II.  with  so  much  success,  was 
now  in  close  alliance  with  the  Russian  emperor ;  and 
Sweden,  which,  under  the  bold  and  inflexible  G.us- 
tavus,  had  almost  planted  its  standards  on  St.  Peters 
burg,  has,  since  the  loss  of  Finland,  been  effectually 
separated,  by  a  sea,  from  the  powerful  empire  which  it 
at  one  time  rivalled  and  attempted  to  subdue. 

It  is  one  of  the  peculiar  advantages  of  the  Russian 
position,  that  with  the  largest  territory,  it  has  a  frontier 


THE   WARS    OF   RUSSIA   AND    TURKEY. 

nowhere  peculiarly  open  to  invasion.  In  Warsaw,  the 
centre  of  Europe,  the  Russian  armies  are  stationed  as 
an  advanced  guard.  *  On  the  north,  it  has,  with  respect 
to  Sweden,  every  advantage  of  an  ultra-marine  posi 
tion.  Prussia,  from  the  facility  with  which  its  provinces 
might  be  invaded  from  Poland,  will  never  seek  a  dispute 
with  its  overshadowing  neighbor.  There  remains, 
therefore,  Austria  only,  with  whom  England  could 
concert  an  opposition  toRussian  success  in  Turkey. 
But  for  purposes  of  foreign  aggression,  Austria  is  pecu 
liarly  weak,  and,  most  of  all,  is  weak  on  the  side 
of  Russia.  Every  page  of  its  history  shows  how 
hard  it  was  obliged  to  contend  for  Hungary ;  how 
earnestly  it  has  desired  to  secure  the  adjoining  pro 
vinces  on  either  side  of  the  Danube ;  and  the  history 
which  has  occasion  to  record  its  longing  and  repeated 
efforts  to  acquire  the  latter  provinces,  has  also  to  add 
its  disappointment  and  defeat. 

There  was  therefore  no  help  for  Turkey,  but 
in  its  own  resources,  and  the  personal  character  of  .its 
sovereign.  The  world  has,  during  the  summer  of 
1829,  had  occasion  to  see  what  they  could  accomplish. 
It  seemed  doubtful,  whether  it  was  easier  to  win  from 
him  provinces  in  Asia  or  in  Europe. 

Having  thus  sought  for  the  origin  of  the  late  wrar 
in  the  hereditary  policy  of  the  Russian  government, 
and  having  explained  its  rapid  issue,  from  a  consider 
ation,  first  of  the  difficulties  which  checked  foreign  in- 


398  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

fluence,  then  of  the  weakness  of  the  Turkish  power  in 
consequence  of  domestic  factions,  and  lastly,  of  the 
personal  debility  of  the  reigning  *  sultan ;  it  only  re 
mains  to  enumerate  the  terms  on  which  peace  was 
finally  conceded.  The  conclusion  of  the  contest 
has  been  aptly  compared  to  the  termination  of  the 
second  Carthaginian  war  with  Rome.  The  cases  have 
many  points  of  analogy.  The  Russian  general,  like  the 
Roman  commander,  was  still  a  young  man ;  the  peace 
in  each  case  was  concluded,  just  as  the  capital  of  the 
conquered  country  was  on  the  point  of  being  attacked. 
The  provinces  beyond  the  Danube  are  lost  to  the 
Porte,  as  much  as  Spain  was  to  the  Carthaginians. 
Greece  is  to  Turkey,  what  Numidia  was  to  Carthage. 
But  if  Diebitsch  shall  be  Scipio,  where  is  our  Han 
nibal  ?  On  the  whole,  the  Roman  conqueror  pre 
scribed  less  degrading  terms,  and  acknowledged  less 
equivocally  the  independence  of  Carthage. 

The  commerce  of  the  Turkish  empire  is  surren 
dered  to  the  Russians.  They  may  go  to  all  ports,  and 
conduct  their  traffic  almost  on  their  own  terms,  inde 
pendent  of  any  plenary  exercise  of  Turkish  sovereignty. 
Every  Russian  who  treads  on  the  Turkish  soil  is  pos 
sessed  of  immunities  which  the  law  of  nations  has 
heretofore  hardly  conceded  to  ambassadors.  The 
Turk  who  may  murder  a  Russian  cannot  avert  from 
the  Porte  a  war  of  annihilation.  The  Roman  tribunes 
were,  in  their  persons,  hardly  held  as  sacred,  or  pro- 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  399 

tccted  by  as  severe  threats,  as  is  every  Russian  subject 
who  may  henceforth  pass  the  Danube.  The  Russian 
government  retains  the  privilege  of  watching  over 
every  one  of  its  citizens,  even  after  they  have  entered  a 
foreign  territory ;  and  it  thus  acquires  a  conditional 
right  of  inquest  into  every  nook  and  hamlet,  every  city 
and  harbor,  every  bazaar  and  encampment  of  the 
Turks.  The  precincts  of  the  seraglio,  and  the  re 
cesses  of  the  mosques,  nay,  for  aught  we  see,  the 
presence-chamber  of  the  Sultan,  and  even  the  sanctuary 
of  Mecca  itself,  are  no  longer  sacred,  except  by  courtesy. 

These  points,  rendering  Russians,  and  Russian 
commerce  in  Turkey,  amenable  only  to  Russian  au 
thorities,  are  inconsistent  with  independence.  But 
this  is  not  all.  By  the  peace  of  Adrianople,  the  Porte 
is  deprived,  effectually,  though  indirectly,  of  the 
sovereignty  of  at  least  eight  parts  in  nineteen  of  all 
its  European  possessions.  The  Peloponnesus  with 
large  additions,  Servia,  and  the  Principalities  of  Mol 
davia  and  Wallachia,  are  severed,  we  trust  for  ever, 
from  the  Ottoman  sway. 

Whatever  relation  Greece  may  bear  to  the  Porte 
and  to  the  rest  of  Europe,  it  will  stand  virtually  under 
the  guardianship  of  Russia,  and,  for  the  present,  will 
have  with  it  a  community  of  interests,  as  of  religion 
and  of  enemies.  Statesmen  have  not  forgotten  that 
the  sovereignty  of  the  Ionian  Isles  was  transferred  to 
Great  Britain  through  the  hands  of  Russia ;  the  re- 


400  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

maining  isles  and  the  main  land  still  offer  every  facility 
for  contesting,  with  English  ambition,  the  commerce 
of  the  Levant,  and  the  supremacy  in  the  ^Egean 
sea.  Some  protection  from  abroad  is  essential  to  the 
new  state.  Bene  vixit,  qui  bene  latuit.  Greece  will 
probably  be  to  Russia  what  Florence  was  to  Austria. 

To  Servia,  the  peace  of  Adrianople  brings  hardly 
fewer  advantages  than  to  Greece.  That  country,  in 
extent  about  as  large  as  Denmark,  or  as  Vermont  and 
New  Hampshire,  has  been  long  swept  by  the  besom  of 
war,  and  will  probably  have  to  encounter  one  struggle 
more,  previous  to  its  entire  emancipation.  On  com 
paring  the  conditions  of  the  several  treaties  of  Bucha 
rest,  Ackermann,  and  Adrianople,  we  find  that  the 
Porte  retains  the  citadels  of  Servia  (of  which  Belgrade 
is  the  chief),  and  is  to  receive  from  the  Servians  a 
moderate  tribute.  The  Russians  guaranty,  that  it  shall 
not  be  excessive.  The  more  vague  the  expression, 
the  more  room  is  allowed  for  the  interference  of  the 
stronger  party.  To  the  Servians  are  further  conceded 
privileges  equal  to  those  enjoyed  by  the  most  favored 
provinces,  and  a  right  of  negotiating  under  Russian 
auspices,  to  secure  to  themselves  the  liberty  of  worship, 
the  choice  of  their  own  chiefs,  freedom  of  commerce  with 
all  parts  of  the  Turkish  territory,  the  entire  domestic 
administration,  even  over  property  belonging  to  Mus 
sulmans,  and  a  prohibition  to  Mussulmans,  other  than 
those  appertaining  to  the  garrisons,  to  establish  them- 


THE    WAIIS    OF    RUSSIA   AND    TURKEY.  401 

selves  in  Servia.  Has  not  Servia,  then,  ceased  to  be 
a  Turkish  province?  Is  the  sovereignty  of  the  Sultan 
any  thing  more  than  nominal  ?  Or,  rather,  where 
does,  in  truth,  the  ultimate  sovereignty  reside  ?  The 
Porte  holds  the  fortresses ;  Russia  guaranties  the  liber 
ties  of  Servia ;  the  Porte  levies  a  tribute  of  money ; 
Russia  has  on  the  affections  of  the  people  a  hold,  which 
can  open  their  most  secret  coffers ;  the  Porte  is  ever 
ready  to  prove  its  power  by  oppression ;  and  Russia 
confirms  to  each  Christian  inhabitant  of  Servia,  the 
peaceful  enjoyment  of  his  property  and  its  rights. 

Respecting  the  noble  provinces  of  Wallachia  and 
Moldavia,  jointly  equal  in  extent  to  about  three  fourths 
of  Florida,  Russia,  delaying  for  the  present  to  claim 
them  in  fee  simple,  has  entered  into  actual  possession, 
under  a  mortgage  which  will  probably  never  be  dis 
charged.  Henceforward  Austria  has  every  thing  to 
fear  and  nothing  to  hope  from  a  war  with  her  neigh 
bor,  wno  now  controls  the  great  highway  of  Hungarian 
commerce,  and  has  easy  access  to  almost  one  half  of 
her  frontier.  The  schemes  of  Peter  the  Great  are 
accomplished.  He  found  an  empire  which  had  no- 
communication  with  the  great  seas  of  commerce  but 
through  Archangel.  His  successor  is  master  of  the 
Baltic,  the  Caspian,  and  the  Euxine ;  and  is  preparing 
to  struggle  with  the  English  for  the  ascendency  in  the 
^Egean. 

The  results  of  the  late  war  have  excited  apprehension 
26 


402  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

in  England ;  but  not  because  the  British  empire  in  India 
has  been  endangered  by  it.  The  alarm  about  India 
is  a  mere  chimera ;  and  ages  must  roll  away,  and  one 
career  of  wild  ambition  be  succeeded  bjfc  another, 
before  a  Russian  Genghis  would  venture  to  stray  into 
India  with  countless  hosts  of  vagrant  conquerors.  No  ! 
The  points  of  collision  are  much  nearer,  less  magnifi 
cent  in  extent,  but  yet  immediate  and  important. 
The  command  of  the  Archipelago  may  be  disputed 
between  those  who  protect  the  Ionian  Isles  and  the 
fosterer  of  independent  Greece.  England  and  Russia, 
the  great  European  rivals,  are,  indeed,  themselves  at 
the  extremes  of  the  continent;  but  the  states  which 
are  their  respective  clients,  are  situated  almost  side  by 
side,  and  a  predominant  influence  in  the  Ionian  Isles  is 
more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  cluster  of  Greek 
islands  in  the  ^Egean,  and  the  deep  harbors  and  noble 
bays  of  continental  Greece. 

On  the  whole,  the  peace  of  Adrianople  is  favorable 
to  the  best  interests  of  civilization.  Some  portions 
of  regions,  on  which  nature  in  her  kindest  mood 
has  lavished  all  the  elements  of  prosperity,  are  now 
permitted  in  security  to  profit  by  their  natural  advan 
tages.  Servia  gains  a  respite  from  oppression ;  the 
means  of  eventually  securing  her  independence;  and 
an  opportunity  of  developing  her  vast,  and,  as  yet, 
almost  wholly  unexplored  resources.  The  principalities 
may  now  prosper,  and  the  desolate  majesty  of  those 


THE    WARS    OF    RUSSIA    AND    TURKEY.  403 

rich  but  wasted  countries  yield  to  the  gentle  influ 
ences  of  accumulated  wealth  and  protected  industry. 
But  above  all,  Greece  is  restored  to  the  affections 
of  humanity.  Favored  by  Providence  in  its  situation 
and  climate  beyond  any  portion  of  Europe,  its  pros 
perity  must  be  rapid  and  cheering.  If  local  influ 
ences,  the  temperature  and  soil  of  a  country,  decide  on 
the  occupations,  and  in  some  measure  on  the  character 
of  its  inhabitants,  the  virtues  and  genius  of  antiquity 
will  under  some  aspect  reappear.  However  much  the 
forms  of  empires  may  have  changed,  the  great  features 
of  nature  remain  unimpaired.  The  same  bright  sun, 
which  shone  on  Plato  and  Phidias,  on  the  heroes  of 
Salamis  and  the  orators  of  the  Athenian  democracy, 
still  rolls  with  undiminished  splendor  through  the  clear 
sky  of  Hellas.  The  streams  of  the  Ilyssus  and  the 
Eurotas  flow  in  their  wonted  channels.  The  olive  of 
Minerva  still  ripens  its  fruits,  and  ripens  them  once 
more  for  peaceful  citizens,  who,  in  their  turn,  have 
struggled  against  the  barbarian  for  their  domestic 
liberties.  It  is,  indeed,  Greece,  and  living  Greece. 
She  reappears  to  take  her  place  in  the  family  of  na 
tions.  Her  star  ascends  brightly  through  a  sky  that 
no  longer  lowers. 

The  remainder  of  European  Turkey  lies  at  the 
mercy  of  its  great  adversary.  If  it  had .  strength  to 
commence  the  recent  struggle,  it  has,  in  the  present 
treaty  of  Adrianople,  resigned  every  hope  of  future 


404  STUDIES    IN    HISTORY. 

successful  resistance.  Indeed,  the  whole  empire  of 
Turkey  is  as  prostrate  before  the  Czar,  as  Persia  has 
been  since  the  termination  of  its  late  war  with  Russia^ 
The  influence  of  Nicholas  prevails  from  the  frozen 
sources  of  the  Torneo  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  His  ships 
ride  triumphantly  in  all  the  Turkish  waters  ;  the  lives 
of  his  subjects  are  charmed  against  every  aggression 
and  violence  throughout  the  Ottoman  dominion.  He 
has  won  every  thing  which  was  essential  to  the  pros 
perity  of  the  provinces  which  acknowledge  his  sway. 
He  has  done  something  for  the  cause  of  humanity. 
But  now  the  world  has  a  yet  deeper  interest  in  the 
wise  administration  of  the  internal  concerns  of  Russia, 
and  in  the  personal  character  of  her  sovereign.  Since 
it  would  be  idle  to  wish  for  her  many  provinces  that 
highest  good  which  comes  from  the  conflict  of  free 
opinions,  we  will  hope  that  he  may  emulate  the  mild 
virtues  of  an  Antonine,  rather  than  the  less  arduous 
and  less  rare  distinction  of  extensive  conquest. 


OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

A  WORD  ON  CALVIN,  THE  REFORMER. 

NOBTHAMPTON,  Oct.  22, 1834. 

IT  is  intolerance  only,  which  would  limit  the  praise 
of  Calvin  to  a  single  sect,  or  refuse  to  reverence  his  vir 
tues  and  regret  his  failings.  He  lived  in  the  time 
when  nations  were  shaken  to  their  centre  by  the  ex 
citement  of  the  reformation ;  when  the  fields  of  Holland 
and  France  were  wet  with  the  carnage  of  persecution ; 
when  vindictive  monarchs  on  the  one  side  threatened 
all  protestants  with  outlawry  and  death,  and  the  Vatican 
on  the  other  sent  forth  its  anathemas  and  its  cry  for 
blood.  In  that  day,  it  is  too  true,  the  influence  of  an 
ancient,  long  established,  hardly  disputed  error,  the 
constant  danger  of  his  position,  the  intense  desire  to 
secure  union  among  the  antagonists  of  popery,  the 
engrossing  consciousness  that  his  struggle  was  for  the 
emancipation  of  the  Christian  world,  induced  the  great 
reformer  to  defend  the  use  of  the  sword  for  the  extirpa 
tion  of  heresy.  Reprobating  and  lamenting  his  adhe 
sion  to  the  cruel  doctrine,  which  all  Christendom  had 


406  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

for  centuries  implicitly  received,  we  may,  as  repub 
licans,  remember  that  Calvin  was  not  only  the  founder 
of  a  sect,  but  foremost  among  the  most  efficient  of 
modern  republican  legislators.  More  truly  benevolent 
to  the  human  race  than  Solon,  more  self-denying  than 
Lycurgus,  the  genius  of  Calvin  infused  enduring  ele 
ments  into  the  institutions  of  Geneva,  and  made  it  for 
the  modern  world,  the  impregnable  fortress  of  popular 
liberty,  the  fertile  seed-plot  of  democracy. 

We  boast  of  our  common  schools ;  Calvin  was  the 
father  of  popular  education,  the  inventor  of  the  system 
of  free  schools.  We  are  proud  of  the  free  States  that 
fringe  the  Atlantic.  The  pilgrims  of  Plymouth  were 
Calvinists ;  the  best  influence  in  South  Carolina  came 
from  the  Calvinists  of  France.  William  Penn  was  the 
disciple  of  the  Huguenots ;  the  ships  from  Holland 
that  first  brought  colonists  to  Manhattan  were  filled 
with  Calvinists.  He  that  will  not  honor  the  memory, 
and  respect  the  influence  of  Calvin,  knows  but  little 
of  the  origin  of  American  liberty. 

If  personal  considerations  chiefly  win  applause, 
then  no  one  merits  our  sympathy  and  our  admiration 
more  than  Calvin ;  the  young  exile  from  Prance,  who 
achieved  an  immortality  of  fame  before  he  was  twenty- 
eight  years  of  age ;  now  boldly  reasoning  with  the  king 
of  Prance  for  religious  liberty ;  now  venturing  as  the 
apostle  of  truth  to  carry  the  new  doctrines  into  the  heart 
of  Italy,  and  hardly  escaping  from  the  fur}7  of  papal 


CALVIN,  THE  REFORMER.          407 

persecution ;  the  purest  writer,  the  keenest  dialectician 
of  his  century  ;  pushing-  free  inquiry  to  its  utmost  verge, 
and  yet  valuing  inquiry  solely  as  the  means  of  arriving 
at  fixed  conclusions.  The  light  of  his  genius  scattered 
the  mask  of  darkness  which  superstition  had  held  for 
centuries  before  the  brow  of  religion.  His  probity  was 
unquestioned,  his  morals  spotless.  His  only  happiness 
consisted  in  his  "  task  of  glory  and  of  good ;"  for  sor 
row  found  its  way  into  all  his  private  relations.  He 
was  an  exile  from  his  country  ;  he  became  for  a  season 
an  exile  from  his  place  of  exile.  As  a  husband  he  was 
doomed,  to  mourn  the  premature  loss  of  his  wife ;  as  a 
father,  he  felt  the  bitter  pang  of  burying  his  only  child. 
Alone  in  the  world,  alone  in  a  strange  land,  he  went 
forward  in  his  career  with  serene  resignation  and  in 
flexible  firmness ;  no  love  of  ease  turned  him  aside 
from  his  vigils ;  no  fear  of  danger  relaxed  the  nerve  of 
his  eloquence;  no  bodily  infirmities  checked  the  in 
credible  activity  of  his  mind;  and  so  he  continued, 
year  after  year,  solitary  and  feeble,  yet  toiling  for 
humanity,  till  after  a  life  of  glory,  he  bequeathed 
to  his  personal  heirs,  a  fortune,  in  books  and  furniture, 
stocks  and  money,  not  exceeding  two  hundred  dollars, 
and  to  the  world  a  purer  reformation,  a  republican 
spirit  in  religion,  with  the  kindred  principles  of  repub 
lican  liberty. 


THE  OFFICE  OF  THE   PEOPLE   IN  ART,  GOVERN- 
MENT,  AND  RELIGION. 

AN  OEATION  DELIVEEED  BEFOEE  THE  ADELPHI  SOCIETY  OF  WIL- 
LIAMSTOWN  COLLEGE,  IN  AUGUST,  1835. 

I. 

THE  material  world  does  not  change  in  its  masses 
or  in  its  powers.  The  stars  shine  with  no  more  lustre 
than  when  they  first  sang  together  in  the  glory  of  their 
birth.  The  flowers  that  gemmed  the  fields  and  the 
forests,  before  America  was  discovered,  now  bloom 
around  us  in  their  season.  The  sun  that  shone  on 
Homer  shines  on  us  in  unchanging  lustre.  The  bow 
that  beamed  on  the  patriarch  ,still  glitters  in  the 
clouds.  Nature  is  the  same.  For  her  no  new  forces 
are  generated ;  no  new  capacities  are  discovered.  The 
earth  turns  on  its  axis,  and  perfects  its  revolutions,  and 
renews  its  seasons,  without  increase  or  advancement. 

But  a  like  passive  destiny  does  not  attach  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  earth.  For  them  the  expecta 
tions  of  social  improvement  are  no  delusion ;  the  hopes 
of  philanthropy  are  more  than  a  dream.  The  five 


THE    OFFICE    OF   THE    PEOPLE.  409 

senses  do  not  constitute  the  whole  inventory  of  our 
sources  of  knowledge.  They  are  the  organs  by 
which  thought  connects  itself  with  the  external  uni 
verse;  but  the  power  of  thought  is  not  merged  in 
the  exercise  of  its  instruments.  We  have  functions 
which  connect  us  with  heaven,  as  well  as  organs 
which  set  us  in  relation  with  earth.  We  have  not 
merely  the  senses  opening  to  us  the  external  world, 
but  an  internal  sense,  which  places  us  in  connexion 
with  the  world  of  intelligence  and  the  decrees  of  God. 

There  is  a  spirit  in  man:  not  in  the  privileged 
few;  not  in  those  of  us  only  who  by  the  favor  of 
Providence  have  been  nursed  in  public  schools :  IT  is 
IN  MAN  :  it  is  the  attribute  of  the  race.  The  spirit, 
which  is  the  guide  to  truth,  is  the  gracious  gift  to  each 
member  of  the  human  family. 

Reason  exists  within  every  breast.  I  mean  not 
that  faculty  which  deduces  inferences  from  the  expe 
rience  of  the  senses,  but  that  higher  faculty,  which 
from  the  infinite  treasures  of  its  own  consciousness, 
originates  truth,  and  assents  to  it  by  the  force  of 
intuitive  evidence ;  that  faculty  which  raises  us  beyond 
the  control  of  time  and  space,  and  gives  us  faith  in 
things  eternal  and  invisible.  There  is  not  the  difference 
between  one  mind  and'  another,  which  the  pride  of 
philosophers  might  conceive.  To  them  no  faculty  is 
conceded,  which  does  not  belong  to  the  meanest  of 
their  countrymen.  In  them  there  can  not  spring  up  a 


410  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

truth,  which  does  not  equally  have  its  germ  in  every 
mind.  They  have  not  the  power  of  creation  ;  they  can 
but  reveal  what  God  has  implanted  in  every  breast. 

The  intellectual  functions,  by  which  relations  are 
perceived,  are  the  common  endowments  of  the  race. 
The  differences  are  apparent,  not  real.  The  eye  in  one 
person  may  be  dull,  in  another  quick,  in  one  distorted, 
and  in  another  tranquil  and  clear ;  yet  the  relation  of 
the  eye  to  light  is  in  all  men  the  same.  Just  so 
judgment  may  be  liable  in  individual  minds  to  the 
bias  of  passion,  and  yet  its  relation  to  truth  is  immu 
table,  and  is  universal. 

In  questions  of  practical  duty,  conscience  is  God's 
umpire,  whose  light  illumines  every  heart.  There  is 
nothing  in  books,  which  had  not  first,  and  has  not  still 
its  life  within  us.  Religion  itself  is  a  dead  letter, 
wherever  its  truths  are  not  renewed  in  the  soul. 
Individual  conscience  may  be  corrupted  by  interest, 
or  debauched  by  pride,  yet  the  rule  of  morality  is 
distinctly  marked ;  its  harmonies  are  to  the  mind  like 
music  to  the  ear ;  and  the  moral  judgment,  when  care 
fully  analyzed  and  referred  to  its  principles,  is  always 
founded  in  right.  The  eastern  superstition,  which  bids 
its  victims  prostrate  themselves  before  the  advancing 
car  of  their  idols,  springs  from  a  noble  root,  and  is  but 
a  melancholy  perversion  of  that  self-devotion,  which 
enables  the  Christian  to  bear  the  cross,  and  subject  his 
personal  passions  to  the  will  of  God.  Immorality  of 


THE    OFFICE    OF   THE    PEOPLE.  41] 

itself  never  won  to  its  support  the  inward  voice ;  con 
science,  if  questioned,  never  forgets  to  curse  the  guilty 
with  the  memory  of  sin,  to  cheer  the  upright  with  the 
meek  tranquillity  of  approval.  And  this  admirable 
power,  which  is  the  instinct  of  Deity,  is  the  attribute 
of  every  man ;  it  knocks  at  the  palace  gate,  it  dwells  in 
the  meanest  hovel.  Duty,  like  death,  enters  every 
abode,  and  delivers  its  message.  Conscience,  like 
reason  and  judgment,  is  universal. 

That  the  moral  affections  are  planted  every  where, 
needs  only  to  be  asserted  to  be  received.  The  savage 
mother  loves  her  offspring  with  all  the  fondness  that  a 
mother  can  know.  Beneath  the  odorous  shade  of  the 
boundless  forests  of  Chili,  the  native  youth  repeats  the 
story  of  love  as  sincerely  as  it  was  ever  chanted  in  the 
valley  of  Vaucluse.  The  affections  of  family  are  not 
the  growth  of  civilization.  The  charities  of  life  are 
scattered  every  where ;  enamelling  the  vales  of  human 
being,  as  the  flowers  paint  the  meadows.  They  are 
not  the  fruit  of  study,  nor  the  privilege  of  refinement, 
but  a  natural  instinct. 

Our  age  has  seen  a  revolution  in  works  of  ima 
gination.  The  poet  has  sought  his  theme  in  common 
life..  Never  is  the  genius  of  Scott  more  pathetic,  than 
when,  as  in  the  Antiquary,  he  delineates  the  sorrows 
of  a  poor  fisherman,  or  as  in  the  Heart  of  Mid  Lothian, 
he  takes  his  heroine  from  a  cottage.  And  even  Words 
worth,  the  purest  and  most  original  poet  of  the  day,  in 


412  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

spite  of  the  inveterate  character  of  his  political  predi 
lections,  has  thrown  the  light  of  genius  on  the  walks  of 
commonest  life ;  he  finds  a  lesson  in  every,  grave  of  the 
village  churchyard ;  he  discloses  the  boundless  treasures 
of  feeling  in  the  peasant,  the  laborer  and  the  artisan  ; 
the  strolling  peddler  becomes,  through  his  genius,  a 
teacher  of  the  sublimest  morality;  and  the  solitary 
wagoner,  the  lonely  shepherd,  even  the  feeble  mother 
of  an  idiot  boy,  furnishes  lessons  in  the  reverence  for 
Humanity. 

If  from  things  relating  to  truth,  justice,  and 
affection,  we  turn  to  those  relating  to  the  beautiful,  we 
may-  here  still  further  assert,  that  the  sentiment  for  the 
beautiful  resides  in  every  breast.  The  lovely  forms  of 
the  external  world  delight  us  from  their  adaptation  to 
our  powers. 

Yea,  what  were  mighty  Nature's  self  ? 
Her  features  could  they  win  us, 

Unhelped  by  the  poetic  voice 

That  hourly  speaks  within  us  r 

The  Indian  mother,  on  the  borders  of  Hudson's 
Bay,  decorates  her  manufactures  with  ingenious  de 
vices  and  lovely  colors,  prompted  by  the  same  instinct 
which  guided  the  pencil  and  mixed  the  colors  of 
Raphael.  The  inhabitant  of  Nootka  Sound  tattoos 
his  body  with  the  method  of  harmonious  Arabesques. 
Every  form,  to  which  the  hands  of  the  artist  have  ever 
given  birth,  sprung  first  into  being  as  a  conception 


THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         413 

of  his  mind,  from  a  natural  faculty,  which  belongs  not 
to  the  artist  exclusively,  but  to  man.  Beauty,  like 
truth  and  justice,  lives  within  us ;  like  virtue  and  like 
moral  law,  it  is  a  companion  of  the  soul.  The  power 
which  leads  to  the  production  of  beautiful  forms,  or  to 
the  perception  of  them  in  the  works  which  God  has 
made,  is  an  attribute  of  Humanity. 

But  I  am  asked  if  I  despise  learning  ?  Shall  one 
who  has  spent  much  of  his  life  in  schools  and  univer 
sities  plead  the  equality  of  uneducated  nature  ?  Is 
there  no  difference  between  the  man  of  refinement  and 
the  savage  ? 

"I  am  a  man,"  said  Black  Hawk  nobly  to  the 
chief  of  the  first  republic  in  the  wrorld;  "  I  am  a  man," 
said  the  barbarous  chieftain,  "and  you  are  another." 

I  speak  for  the  universal  diffusion  of  human 
powers,  not  of  human  attainments;  for  the  capacity 
for  progress,  not  for  the  perfection  of  undisciplined 
iifstincts.  The  fellowship  which  we  should  cherish  with 
the  race,  receives  the  Comanche  warrior  and  the 
Cafrre  within  the  pale  of  equality.  Their  functions 
may  not  have  been  exercised,  but  they  exist.  Immure 
a  person  in  a  dungeon ;  as  he  comes  to  the  light  of 
day,  his  vision  seems  incapable  of  performing  its  office. 
Does  that  destroy  your  conviction  in  the  relation  be 
tween  the  eye  and  light?  The  rioter  over  his  cups 
resolves  to  eat  and  drink  and  be  merry ;  he  forgets  his 
spiritual  nature  in  his  obedience  to  the  senses ;  but 


A 
414  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

does  that  destroy  the  relation  between  conscience  and 
eternity?  "What  ransom  shall  we  give?  "  exclaimed 
the  senators  of  Rome  to  the  savage  Attila.  "  Give," 
said  the  barbarian,  "  all  your  gold  and  jewels,  your 
costly  furniture  and  treasures,  and  set  free  every 
slave."  "Ah,"  replied  the  degenerate  Romans, 
" what  then  will  be  left  to  us ? "  "I  leave  you 
your  souls-,"  replied  the  unlettered  invader  from  the 
steppes  of  Asia,  who  had  learnt  in  the  wilderness 
to  value  the  immortal  mind,  and  to  despise  the  servile 
herd,  that  esteemed  only  their  fortunes,  and  had  no 
true  respect  for  themselves.  You  cannot  discover  a 
tribe  of  men,  but  you  also  find  the  charities  of  life,  and 
the  proofs  of  spiritual  existence.  Behold  the  ignorant 
Algonquin  deposit  a  bow  and  quiver  by  the  side  of  the 
departed  warrior;  and  recognise  his  faith  in  immor 
tality.  See  the  Comanche  chieftain,  in  the  heart  of  our 
continent,  inflict  on  himself  severest  penance ;  and 
reverence  his  confession  of  the  needed  atonement  &r 

• 

sin.  The  Barbarian  who  roams  our  western  prairies 
has  like  passions  and  like  endowments  with  ourselves. 
He  bears  within  him  the  instinct  of  Deity ;  the  con 
sciousness  of  a  spiritual  nature;  the  love  of  beauty; 
the  rule  of  morality. 

And  shall  we  reverence  the  dark-skinned  Caflre  ? 
Shall  we  respect  the  brutal  Hottentot  ?  You  may  read 
the  right  answer  written  on  every  heart.  It  bids  me 
not  despise  the  sable  hunter,  that  gathers  a  livelihood 


THE    OFFICE    OF    THE    PEOPLE.  415 

in  the  forests  of  Southern  Africa.  All  are  men. 
When  we  know  the  Hottentot  better,  we  shall  despise 
him  less. 

ii. 

If  it  be  true,  that  the  gifts  of  mind  and  heart  are 
universally  diffused,  if  the  sentiment  of  truth,  justice, 
love,  and  beauty  exists  in  every  one,  then  it  follows,  as 
a  necessary  consequence,  that  the  common  judgment  in 
taste,  politics,  and  religion,  is  the  highest  authority  on 
earth,  and  the  nearest  possible  approach  to  an  infallible 
decision.  From  the  consideration  of  individual  powers 
I  turn  to  the  action  of  the  human  mind  in  masses. 

If  reason  is  a  universal  faculty,  the  universal  de 
cision  is  the  nearest  criterion  of  truth.  The  common 
mind  winnows  opinions ;  it  is  the  sieve  which  separates 
error  from  certainty.  The  exercise  by  many  of  the  same 
faculty  on  the  same  subject  would  naturally  lead  to 
the  same  conclusions.  But  if  not,  the  very  differences 
of  opinion  that  arise  prove  the  supreme  judgment 
of  the  general  mind.  Truth  is  one.  It  never  con 
tradicts  itself.  One  truth  cannot  contradict  another 
truth.  Hence  truth  is  a  bond  of  union.  But 
error  not  only  contradicts  truth,  but  may  contra 
dict  itself;  so  that  there  may  be  many  errors,  and 
each  at  variance  with  the  rest.  Truth  is  therefore 
of  necessity  an  element  of  harmony;  error  as  neces 
sarily  an  element  of  discord.  Thus  there  can  bo 


416  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

no  continuing  universal  judgment  but  a  right  one. 
Men  cannot  agree  in  an  absurdity ;  neither  can  they 
agree  in  a  falsehood. 

If  wrong  opinions  have  often  been  cherished  by 
the  masses,  the  cause  always  lies  in  the  complexity  of 
the  ideas  presented.  Error  finds  its  way  into  the  soul 
of  a  nation,  only  through  the  channel  of  truth.  It 
is  to  a  truth  that  men  listen ;  and  if  they  accept  er 
ror  also,  it  is  only  because  the  error  is  for  the  time 
so  closely  interwoven  with  the  truth,  that  the  one 
cannot  readily  be  separated  from  the  other. 

Unmixed  error  can  have  no  existence  in  the  public 
mind.  Wherever  you  see  men  clustering  together  to 
form  a  party,  you  may  be  sure  that  however  much 
error  may  be  there,  truth  is  there  also.  Apply  this 
principle  boldly ;  for  it  contains  a  lesson  of  candor, 
and  a  voice  of  encouragement.  There  never  was 
a  school  of  philosophy,  nor  a  clan  in  the  realm  of 
opinion,  but  carried  along  with  it  some  important 
truth.  And  therefore  every  sect  that  has  ever  flour 
ished  has  benefited  Humanity;  for  the  errors  of  a 
sect  pass  away  and  are  forgotten;  its  truths  are  re 
ceived  into  the  common  inheritance.  To  know  the 
seminal  thought  of  every  prophet  and  leader  of  a 
sect,  is  to  gather  all  the  wisdom  of  mankind. 
"  By  heaven !  there  should  not  be  a  seer,  who  left 
The  world  one  doctrine,  but  I'd  task  his  lore, 
And  commune  with  his  spirit.  All  the  truth 


THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         417 

Of  all  the  tongues  of  earth,  I'd  have  them  all, 
Had  I  the  powerful  spell  to  raise  their  ghosts." 

The  sentiment  of  beauty,  as  it  exists  in  the  human 
mind,  is  the  criterion  in  works  of  art,  inspires  the  con 
ceptions  of  genius,  and  exercises  a  final  judgment  on 
its  productions.  For  who  are  the  best  judges  in  mat 
ters  of  taste  ?  Do  you  think  the  cultivated  individual  ? 
Undoubtedly  not ;  but  the  collective  mind.  The  pub 
lic  is  wiser  than  the  wisest  critic.  In  Athens,  the  arts 
were  carried  to  perfection,,  when  "the  fierce  demo- 
cracie  "  was  in  the  ascendant ;  the  temple  of  Minerva 
and  the  works  of  Phidias  were  planned  and  perfected  to 
please  the  common  people.  When  Greece  yielded  to 
tyrants,  her  genius  for  excellence  in  art  expired ;  or 
rather,  the  purity  of  taste  disappeared ;  because  the 
artist  then  endeavored  to  gratify  a  patron,  and  there 
fore,  humored  his  caprice ;  while  before  he  had  en 
deavored  to  delight  the  race. 

When,  after  a  long  eclipse,  the  arts  again  burst  into 
a  splendid  existence,  it  was  equally  under  a  popular 
influence.  During  the  rough  contests  and  feudal 
tyrannies  of  the  middle  age,  religion  had  opened  in 
the  church  an  asylum  for  the  people.  There  the  serf 
and  the  beggar  could  kneel ;  there  the  pilgrim  and  the 
laborer  were  shrived ;  and  the  children  of  misfortune 
not  less  than  the  prosperous  were  welcomed  to  the 
house  of  prayer.  The  church  was,  consequently,  at 
once  the  guardian  of  equality,  and  the  nurse  of  the 
27 


418  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

arts;  and  the  souls  of  Giotto,  and  Perugino,  and 
Raphael,  moved  by  an  infinite  sympathy  with  the 
crowd,  kindled  into  divine  conceptions  of  beautiful 
forms.  Appealing  to  the  sentiment  of  devotion  in  the 
common  mind,  they  dipped  their  pencils  in  living 
colors,  to  decorate  the  altars  where  man  adored.  By 
degrees  the  wealthy  nobility  desired  in  like  manner  to 
adorn  their  palaces ;  but  at  the  attempt,  the  quick 
familiarity  of  the  artist  with  the  beautiful  declined 
Instead  of  the  brilliant  works  which  spoke  to  the 
soul,  a  school  arose,  who  appealed  to  the  senses ; 
and  in  the  land  which  had  produced  the  most  moving 
pictures,  addressed  to  the  religious  feeling,  and  instinct 
with  the  purest  beauty,  the  banquet  halls  were  covered 
with  grotesque  forms,  such  as  float  before  the  imagina 
tion,  when  excited  and  bewildered  by  sensual  indul 
gence.  Instead  of  holy  families,  the  ideal  repre 
sentations  of  the  virgin  mother  and  the  godlike  child. 
of  the  enduring  faith  of  martyrs,  of  the  blessed 
benevolence  of  evangelic  love,  there  came  the  motley 
group  of  fawns  and  satyrs,  of  Diana  stooping  to  Encly- 
mion,  of  voluptuous  beauty,  and  the  forms  of  licentious 
ness.  Humanity  frowned  on  the  desecration  of  the 
arts;  and  painting,  no  longer  vivified  by  a  fellow- 
feeling  with  the  multitude,  lost  its  greatness  in  the 
attempt  to  adapt  itself  to  personal  humors. 

If  with   us   the   arts  are  destined   to   a  brilliant 
career,  the  inspiration  must  spring  from  the  vigor  of 


THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         419 

the  people.  Genius  will  not  create,  to  natter  patrons 
or  decorate  saloons.  It  yearns  for  larger  influences ; 
it  feeds  on  wider  sympathies ;  and  its  perfect  display 
can  never  exist,  except  in  an  appeal  to  the  general  sen 
timent  for  the  beautiful. 

Again.  Italy  is  famed  for  its  musical  compositions, 
its  inimitable  operas.  It  is  a  well-known  fact,  that  the 
best  critics  are  often  deceived  in  their  judgment  of 
them;  while  the  pit,  composed  of  the  throng,  does, 
without  fail,  render  a  true  verdict. 

But  the  taste  for  music,  it  may  be  said,  is  favored 
by  natural  organization.  Precisely  a  statement  that 
sets  in  a  clearer  light  the  natural  capacity  of  the  race  ; 
for  taste  is  then  not  an  acquisition,  but  in  part  a  gift. 
But  let  us  pass  to  works  of  literature. 

Who  are  by  way  of  eminence  the  poets  of  all  man 
kind?  Surely  Homer  and  Shakspeare.  Now  Homer 
formed  his  taste,  as  he  wandered  from  door  to  door,  a 
vagrant  minstrel,  paying  for  hospitality  by  a  song ;  and 
Shakspeare  wrote  for  an  audience,  composed  in  a  great 
measure  of  the  common  people. 

The  little  story  of  Paul  and  Virginia  is  a  universal 
favorite.  When  it  was  first  written,  the  author  read  it 
aloud  to  a  circle  in  Paris,  composed  of  the  wife  of  the 
prime  minister,  and  the  choicest  critics  of  Prance. 
They  condemned  it,  as  dull  and  insipid.  The  author 
appealed  to  the  public ;  and  the  children  of  all  Europe 
reversed  the  decree  of  the  Parisians.  The  judgment 


420  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

of  children,  that  is,  the  judgment  of  the  common  mind 
under  its  most  innocent  and  least  imposing  form,  was 
more  trustworthy  than  the  criticism  of  the  select 
refinement  of  the  most  polished  city  in  the  world. 

Demosthenes  of  old  formed  himself  to  the  perfection 
of  eloquence  by  means  of  addresses  to  the  crowd.  The 
great  comic  poet  of  Greece,  emphatically  the  poet  of  the 
vulgar  mob,  is  distinguished  above  all  others  for  the 
incomparable  graces  of  his  diction ;  and  it  is  related  of 
one  of  the  most  skilful  writers  in  the  Italian,  that 
when  inquired  of  where  he  had  learned  the  purity  and 
nationality  of  his  style,  he  replied,  from  listening  to 
the  country  people,  as  they  brought  their  produce 
to  market. 

At  the  revival  of  letters  a  distinguishing  feature  of 
the  rising  literature  was  the  employment  of  the  dialect 
of  the  vulgar.  Dante  used  the  language  of  the  popu 
lace  and  won  immortality ;  Wickliffe,  Luther,  and  at  a 
later  day  Descartes,  each  employed  his  mother  tongue, 
and  carried  truth  directly  to  all  who  were  familiar 
with  its  accents.  Every  beneficent  revolution  in  letters 
has  the  character  of  popularity;  every  great  reform 
among  .authors  has  sprung  from  the  power  of  the 
people  in  its  influence  on  the  development  and  activity 
of  mind. 

The  same  influence  continues  unimpaired.  Scott,  in 
spite  of  his  reverence  for  the  aristocracy,  spurned  a  draw 
ing-room  reputation ;  the  secret  of  Byron's  superiority 


THE    OFFICE    OF    THE    PEOPLE.  421 

lay  in  part  in  the  agreement  which  existed  between  his 
muse  and  the  democratic  tendency  of  the  age.  Ger 
man  literature  is  almost  entirely  a  popular  creation. 
It  was  fostered  by  no  monarch ;  it  was  dandled  by  no 
aristocracy.  It  was  plebeian  in  its  origin,  and  therefore 
manly  in  its  results. 

in. 

In  like  manner  the  best  government  rests  on  the 
people  and  not  on  the  few,  on  persons  and  not  on 
property,  on  the  free  development  of  public  opinion  and 
not  on  authority ;  because  the  munificent  Author  of  our 
being  has  conferred  the  gifts  of  mind  upon  every  mem 
ber  of  the  human  race  without  distinction  of  outward 
circumstances.  Whatever  of  other  possessions, may  be 
engrossed,  mind  asserts  its  own  independence.  Lands, 
estates,  the  produce  of  mines,  the  prolific  abundance  of 
the  seas,  may  be  usurped  by  a  privileged  class. 
Avarice,  assuming  the  form  of  ambitious  power,  may 
grasp  realm  after  realm,  subdue  continents,  compass 
the  earth  in  its  schemes  of  aggrandizement,  and  sigh 
after  other  worlds ;  but  mind  eludes  the  power  of  ap 
propriation  ;  it  exists  only  in  its  own  individuality ;  it 
is  a  property  which  cannot  be  confiscated  and  cannot 
be  torn  away ;  it  laughs  at  chains ;  it  bursts  from  im 
prisonment;  it  defies  monopoly.  A  government  of 
equal  rights  must,  therefore,  rest  upon  mind ;  not 
wealth,  not  brute  force,  the  sum  of  the  moral  intel- 


422  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

ligence  of  the  community  should  rule  the  State.  Pre 
scription  can  no  more  assume  to  be  a  valid  plea  for 
political  injustice;  society  studies  to  eradicate  estab 
lished  abuses,  and  to  bring  social  institutions  and 
laws  into  harmony  with  moral  right ;  not  dismayed  by 
the  natural  and  necessary  imperfections  of  all  human 
effort,  and  not  giving  way  to  despair,  because  every 
hope  does  not  at  once  ripen  into  fruit. 

The  public  happiness  is  the  true  object  of  legis 
lation,  and  can  be  secured  only  by  the  masses  of 
mankind  themselves  awakening  to  the  knowledge  and 
the  care  of  their  own  interests.  Our  free  institutions 
have  reversed  the  false  and  ignoble  distinctions  between 
men ;  and  refusing  to  gratify  the  pride  of  caste,  have 
acknowledged  the  common  mind  to  be  the  true  mate 
rial  for  a  commonwealth.  Every  thing  has  hitherto 
been  done  for  the  happy  few.  It  is  not  possible  to 
endow  an  aristocracy  with  greater  benefits  than  they 
have  already  enjoyed ;  there  is  no  room  to  hope  that 
individuals  will  be  more  highly  gifted  or  more  fully 
developed  than  the  greatest  sages  of  past  times.  •The 
world  can  advance  only  through  the  culture  of  the 
moral  and  intellectual  powers  of  the  people.  To 
accomplish  this  end  by  means  of  the  people  themselves, 
is  the  highest  purpose  of  government.  If  it  be  the 
duty  of  the  individual  to  strive  after  a  perfection  like 
the  perfection  of  God,  how  much  more  ought  a  nation 
to  be  the  image  of  Deity.  The  common  mind  is  the 


THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         423 

true  Parian  marble,  fit  to  be  wrought  into  likeness  to  a 
God.  The  duty  of  America  is  to  secure  the  culture 
and  the  happiness  of  the  masses  by  their  reliance  on 
themselves. 

The  absence  of  the  prejudices  of  the  old  world 
leaves  us  here  the  opportunity  of  consulting  inde 
pendent  truth ;  and  man  is  left  to  apply  the  instinct  of 
freedom  to  every  social  relation  and  public  interest. 
We  have  approached  so  near  to  nature,  that  we  can 
hear  her  gentlest  whispers ;  we  have  made  Humanity 
our  lawgiver  and  our  oracle  ;  and,  therefore,  the  nation 
receives,  vivifies  and  applies  principles,  which  in  Europe 
the  wisest  accept  with  distrust.  Freedom  of  mind  and 
of  conscience,  freedom  of  the  seas,  freedom  of  industry, 
equality  of  franchises,  each  great  truth  is  firmly  grasped, 
comprehended  and  enforced ;  for  the  multitude  is 
neither  rash  nor  fickle.  In  truth,  it  is  less  fickle  than 
those  who  profess  to  be  its  guides.  Its  natural  dia~ 
lectics  surpass  the  logic  of  the  schools.  Political  action 
has  never  been  so  consistent  and  so  unwavering,  as 
when  it  results  from  a  feeling  or  a  principle,  diffused 
through  society.  The  people  is  firm  and  tranquil  in 
its  movements,  and  necessarily  acts  with  moderation, 
because  it  becomes  but  slowly  impregnated  with  new 
ideas ;  and  effects  no  changes,  except  in  harmony  with 
the  knowledge  which  it  has  acquired.  Besides,  where 
it  is  permanently  possessed  of  power,  there  exists 
neither  the  occasion  nor  the  desire  for  frequent  change. 


4:24  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES. 

It  is  not  the  parent  of  tumult ;  sedition  is  bred  in  the 
lap  of  luxury,  and  its  chosen  emissaries  are  the  beg 
gared  spendthrift  and  the  impoverished  libertine.  The 
government  by  the  people  is  in  very  truth  the  strong 
est  government  in  the  world.  Discarding  the  imple 
ments  of  terror,  it  dares  to  rule  by  moral  force,  and 
has  its  citadel  in  the  heart. 

Such  is  the  political  system  which  rests  on  reason, 
reflection,  and  the  free  expression  of  deliberate  choice. 
There  may  be  those  who  scoff  at  the  suggestion,  that 
the  decision  of  the  whole  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  judg 
ment  of  the  enlightened  few.  They  say  in  their  hearts 
that  the  masses  are  ignorant ;  that  farmers  know 
nothing  of  legislation ;  that  mechanics  should  not  quit 
their  workshops  to  join  in  forming  public  opinion.  But 
true  political  science  does  indeed  venerate  the  masses. 
It  maintains,  not  as  has  been  perversely  asserted,  that 
"  the  people  can  make  right,"  but  that  the  people  can 
DISCERN  right.  Individuals  are  but  shadows,  too  often 
engrossed  by  the  pursuit  of  shadows ;  the  race  is  im 
mortal  :  individuals  are  of  limited  sagacity ;  the  com 
mon  mind  is  infinite  in  its  experience  :  individuals  are 
languid  and  blind ;  the  many  are  ever  wakeful :  indi 
viduals  are  corrupt;  the  race  has  been  redeemed: 
individuals  are  time-serving ;  the  masses  are  fearless : 
individuals  may  be  false,  the  masses  are  ingenuous  and 
sincere :  individuals  claim  the  divine  sanction  of  truth 
for  the  deceitful  conceptions  of  their  own  fancies ;  the 


THE    OFFICE    OF    THE    PEOPLE.  425 

Spirit  of  God  breathes  through  the  combined  intelli 
gence  of  the  people.  Truth  is  not  to  be  ascertained  by 
the  impulses  of  an  individual ;  it  emerges  from  the 
contradictions  of  personal  opinions;  it  raises  itself  in 
majestic  serenity  above  the  strifes  of  parties  and  the 
conflict  of  sects ;  it  acknowledges  neither  the  solitary 
mind,  nor  the  separate  faction  as  its  oracle  ;  but  owns 
as  its  only  faithful  interpreter  the  dictates  of  pure 
reason  itself,  proclaimed  by  the  general  voice  of  man 
kind.  The  decrees  of  the  universal  conscience  are  the 
nearest  approach  to  the  presence  of  God  in  the  soul 
of  man. 

Thus  the  opinion  which  we  respect  is,  indeed, 
not  the  opinion  of  one  or  of  a  few,  but  the  sa 
gacity  of  the  many.  It  is  hard  for  the  pride  of  culti 
vated  philosophy  to  put  its  ear  to  the  ground,  and 
listen  reverently  to  the  voice  of  lowly  humanity  ;  yet  the 
people  collectively  are  wiser  than  the  most  gifted  indi 
vidual,  for  all  his  wisdom  constitutes  but  a  part  of 
theirs.  When  the  great  sculptor  of  Greece  was  en 
deavoring  to  fashion  the  perfect  model  of  beauty,  he 
did  not  passively  imitate  the  form  of  the  loveliest 
woman  of  his  age ;  but  he  gleaned  the  several  linea 
ments  of  his  faultless  work  from  the  many.  And  so  it 
is,  that  a  perfect  judgment  is  the  result  of  comparison, 
when  error  eliminates  error,  and  truth  is  established  by 
concurring  witnesses.  The  organ  of  truth  is  the  in 
visible  decision  of  the  unbiased  world;  she  pleads 


426  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

before  no  tribunal  but  public  opinion;  she  owns  no 
safe  interpreter  but  the  common  mind ;  she  knows  no 
court  of  appeals  but  the  soul  of  humanity.  It  is 
when  the  multitude  give  counsel,  that  right  purposes 
find  safety ;  theirs  is  the  fixedness  that  cannot  be 
shaken ;  theirs  is  the  understanding  which  exceeds  in 
wisdom ;  theirs  is  the  heart,  of  which  the  largeness  is 
as  the  sand  on  the  sea-shore. 

It  is  not  by  vast  armies,  by  immense  natural  re 
sources,  by  accumulations  of  treasure,  that  the  greatest 
results  in  modern  civilization  have  been  accomplished. 
The  traces  of  the  career  of  conquest  pass  aw^ay,  hardly 
leaving  a  scar  on  the  national  intelligence.  The  famous 
battle  grounds  of  victory  are,  most  of  them,  comparative 
ly  indifferent  to  the  human  race ;  barren  fields  of  blood, 
the  scourges  of  their  times,  but  affecting  the  social  con 
dition  as  little  as  the  raging  of  a  pestilence.  Not  one 
benevolent  institution,  not  one  ameliorating  principle 
in  the  Roman  state,  was  a  voluntary  concession  of  the 
aristocracy;  each  useful  element  was  borrowed  from 
the  Democracies  of  Greece,  or  was  a  reluctant  con 
cession  to  the  demands  of  the  people.  The  same  is 
true  in  modern  political  life.  It  is  the  confession  of  an 
enemy  to  Democracy,  that  "  ALL  THE  GREAT  AND  NOBLE 

INSTITUTIONS  OF  THE  WORLD  HAVE  COME  FROM  POPULAR 
EFFORTS." 

It  is  the  uniform  tendency  of  the  popular  element 
to  elevate  and  bless  Humanity.  The  exact  measure 


THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         427 

of  the  progress  of  civilization  is  the  degree  in  which 
the  intelligence  of  the  common  mind  has  prevailed  over 
wealth  and  brute  force ;  in  other  words,  the  measure 
of  the  progress  of  civilization  is  the  progress  of  the 
people.  Every  great  object,  connected  with  the  be 
nevolent  exertions  of  the  day,  has  reference  to  the 
culture  of  those  powers  which  are  alone  the  common 
inheritance.  For  this  the  envoys  of  religion  cross  seas, 
and  visit  remotest  isles ;  for  this  the  press  in  its  free 
dom  teems  with  the  productions  of  maturest  thought ; 
for  this  the  philanthropist  plans  new  schemes  of  educa 
tion  ;  for  this  halls  in  every  city  and  village  are  open  to 
the  public  instructor.  Not  that  we  view  with  indif 
ference  the  glorious  efforts  of  material  industry;  the 
increase  in  the  facility  of  internal  intercourse ;  the  accu 
mulations  of  thrifty  labor ;  the  varied  results  of  concen 
trated  action.  But  even  there  it  is  mind  that  achieves 
the  triumph.  It  is  the  genius  of  the  architect  that 
gives  beauty  to  the  work  of  human  hands,  and  makes 
the  temple,  the  dwelling,  or  the  public  edifice,  an  out 
ward  representation  of  the  spirit  of  propriety  and  order. 
It  is  science  that  guides  the  blind  zeal  of  cupidity  to 
the  construction  of  the  vast  channels  of  communication, 
which  are  fast  binding  the  world  into  one  family. 
And  it  is  as  a  method  of  moral  improvement,  that  these 
swifter  means  of  intercourse  derive  their  greatest 
value.  Mind  becomes  universal  property ;  the  poem 
that  is  published  on  the  soil  of  England,  finds  its 


428  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

response  on  the  shores  of  lake  Erie  and  the  banks  of 
the  Missouri,  and  is  admired  near  the  sources  of  the 
Ganges.  The  defence  of  public  liberty  in  our  own 
halls  of  legislation  penetrates  the  plains  of  Poland,  is 
echoed  along  the  mountains  of  Greece,  and  pierces  the 
darkest  night  of  eastern  despotism. 

The  universality  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
powers,  and  the  necessity  of  their  development  for  the 
progress  of  the  race,  proclaim  the  great  doctrine  of  the 
natural  right  of  every  human  being  to  moral  and  intel 
lectual  culture.  It  is  the  glory  of  our  fathers  to  have 
established  in  their  laws  the  equal  claims  of  every  child 
to  the  public  care  of  its  morals  and  its  mind.  Prom 
this  principle  we  may  deduce  the  universal  right  to 
leisure ;  that  is,  to  time  not  appropriated  to  material 
purposes,  but  reserved  for  the  culture  of  the  moral 
affections  and  the  mind.  It  does  not  tolerate  the  ex 
clusive  enjoyment  of  leisure  by  a  privileged  class ;  but 
defending  the  "rights  of  labor,  would  suffer  none  to 
sacrifice  the  higher  purposes  of  existence  in  unceasing 
toil  for  that  which  is  not  life.  Such  is  the  voice  of 
nature ;  such  the  conscious  claim  of  the  human  mind. 
The  universe  opens  its  pages  to  every  eye ;  the  music 
of  creation  resounds  in  every  ear ;  the  glorious  lessons 
of  immortal  truth,  that  are  written  in  the  sky  and  on 
the  earth,  address  themselves  to  every  mind,  and  claim 
attention  from  every  human  being.  God  has  made 
man  upright,  that  he  might  look  before  and  after ;  and 


THE    OFFICE    OF    THE    PEOPLE.  429 

lie  calls  upon  every  one  not  merely  to  labor,  but  to 
reflect ;  not  merely  to  practise  the  revelations  of  divine 
will,  but  to  contemplate  the  displays  of  divine  power. 
Nature  claims  for  every  man  leisure,  for  she  claims 
every  man  as  a  witness  to  the  divine  glory,  manifested 
in  the  created  world. 

"  Yet  evermore,  through  years  renewed 
In  undisturbed  vicissitude 
Of  seasons  balancing  their  flight 
On  the  swift  wings  of  day  and  night, 
Kind  nature  keeps  a  heavenly  door 
Wide  open  for  the  scattered  poor, 
Where  flower-breathed  incense  to  the  skies 
Is  wafted  in  mute  harmonies ; 
And  ground  fresh  cloven  by  the  plough 
Is  fragrant  with  an  humbler  vow ; 
Where  birds  and  brooks  from  leafy  dells 
Chime  forth  unwearied  canticles, 
And  vapors  magnify  and  spread 
The  glory  of  the  sun's  bright  head ; 
Still  constant  in  her  worship,  still 
Conforming  to  the  Almighty  Will, 
Whether  men  sow  or  reap  the  fields, 
Her  admonitions  nature  yields ; 
That  not  by  bread  alone  we  live, 
Or  what  a  hand  of  flesh  can  give ; 
That  every  day  should  leave  some  part 
Free  for  a  sabbath  of  the  heart ; 


430  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

So  shall  the  seventh  be  truly  blest, 
Prom  morn  to  eve,  with  hallowed  rest." 

The  right  to  universal  education  being  thus  ac 
knowledged  by  our  conscience,  not  less  than  by  our 
laws,  it  follows,  that  the  people  is  the  true  recipient  of 
truth.  Do  not  seek  to  conciliate  individuals ;  do  not 
dread  the  frowns  of  a  sect ;  do  not  yield  to  the  pro 
scriptions  of  a  party ;  but  pour  out  truth  into  the  com 
mon  mind.  Let  the  waters  of  intelligence,  like  the 
rains  of  heaven,  descend  on  the  whole  earth.  And 
be  not  discouraged  by  the  dread  of  encountering 
ignorance.  The  prejudices  of  ignorance  are  more 
easily  removed  than  the  prejudices  of  interest ;  the 
first  are  blindly  adopted ;  the  second  wilfully  preferred. 
Intelligence  must  be  diffused  among  the  whole  people ; 
truth  must  be  scattered  among  those  who  have  no 
interest  to  suppress  its  growth.  The  seeds  that  fall  on 
the  exchange,  or  in  the  hum  of  business,  may  be 
choked  by  the  thorns  that  spring  up  in  the  hotbed 
of  avarice ;  the  seeds  that  are  let  fall  in  the  saloon, 
may  be  like  those  dropped  by  the  wayside,  which  take 
no  root.  Let  the  young  aspirant  after  glory  scatter 
the  seeds  of  truth  broadcast  on  the  wide  bosom  of  Hu 
manity  ;  in  the  deep,  fertile  soil  of  the  public  mind. 
There  it  will  strike  deep  root  and  spring  up,  and  bear 
an  hundred-fold,  and  bloom  for  ages,  and  ripen  fruit 
through  remote  generations. 

It  is  alone  by  infusing  great  principles  into  the 


THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  PEOPLE.         431 

common  mind,  that  revolutions  in  human  society  are 
brought  about.  They  never  have  been,  they  never  can 
be,  effected  by  superior  individual  excellence.  The  age 
of  the  Antonines  is  the  age  of  the  greatest  glory  of  the 
Roman  empire.  Men  distinguished  by  every  accom 
plishment  of  culture  and  science,  for  a  century  in  suc 
cession,  possessed  undisputed  sway  over  more  than  a 
hundred  millions  of  men ;  till  at  last,  in  the  person  of 
Mark  Aurelian,  philosophy  herself  seemed  to  mount  the 
throne.  And  did  she  stay  the  downward  tendencies 
of  the  Roman  empire  ?  Did  she  infuse  new  elements 
of  life  into  the  decaying  constitution  ?  Did  she  com 
mence  one  great,  beneficent  reform  ?  Not  one  perma 
nent  amelioration  was  effected ;  philosophy  was  -clothed 
with  absolute  power ;  and  yet  absolute  power  accom 
plished  nothing  for  Humanity.  It  could  accomplish 
nothing.  Had  it  been  possible,  Aurelian  would  have 
wrought  a  change.  Society  can  be  regenerated,  the 
human  race  can  be  advanced,  only  by  moral  prin 
ciples  diffused  through  the  multitude. 

And  now  let  us  take  an  opposite  instance ;  let  us 
see,  if  amelioration  follows,  when  in  despite  of  tyranny 
truth  finds  access  to  the  common  people ;  and  Chris 
tianity  itself  shall  furnish  my  example. 

When  Christianity  first  made  its  way  into  Rome, 
the  imperial  city  was  the  seat  of  wealth,  philosophy,  and 
luxury.  Absolute  government  was  already  established ; 
and  had  the  will  of  Claudius  been  gained,  or  the  con- 


432  •  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

science  of  Messalina  been  roused,  or  the  heart  of  Nar 
cissus,  once  a  slave,  then  prime  minister,  been  touched 
by  the  recollections  of  his  misfortunes,  the  aid  of  the 
sovereign  of  the  civilized  world  would  have  been 
engaged.  And  did  the  messenger  of  divine  truth 
make  his  appeal  to  them?  Was  his  mission  to  the 
emperor  and  his  minions  ?  to  the  empress  and  her 
flatterers  ?  to  servile  senators  ?  to  wealthy  favorites  ? 
Paul  preserves  for  us  the  names  of  the  first  converts ; 
the  Roman  Mary  and  Junia;  Julia  and  Nerea;  and 
the  beloved  brethren ;  all  plebeian  names,  unknown  to 
history.  "  Greet  them,"  he  adds,  "  that  be  of  the 
household  of  Narcissus."  Now  every  Roman  house 
hold  was  a  community  of  slaves.  Narcissus  himself,  a 
freedman,  was  the  chief  minister  of  the  Roman  em 
pire  ;  his  ambition  had  left  him  no  moments  for  the 
envoy  from  Calvary ;  the  friends  of  Paul  were  a  freed- 
man's  slaves.  When  God  selected  the  channel  by 
which  Christianity  should  make  its  way  in  the  city  of 
Rome,  and  assuredly  be  carried  forward  to  acknow 
ledged  supremacy  in  the  Roman  empire,  he  gave  to  the 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  favor  in  the  household  of  Nar 
cissus  ;  he  planted  truth  deep  in  the  common  soil.  Had 
Christianity  been  received  at  court,  it  would  have  been 
stifled  or  corrupted  by  the  prodigal  vices  of  the  age ;  it 
lived  in  the  hearts  of  the  common  people ;  it  sheltered 
itself  against  oppression  in  the  catacombs  and  among 
tombs ;  it  made  misfortune  its  convert,  and  sorrow  its 


THE    OFFICE    OF    THE    PEOPEE.  433 

companion,  and  labor  its  stay.  It  rested  on  a  rock, 
for  it  rested  on  the  people ;  it  was  gifted  with  immor 
tality,  for  it  struck  root  in  the  hearts  of  the  million. 

So  completely  was  this  greatest  of  all  reforms 
carried  forward  in  the  vale  of  life,  that  the  great  moral 
revolution,  the  great  step  of  God's  Providence  in  the 
education  of  the  human  race,  was  not  observed  by  the 
Roman  historians.  Once,  indeed,  at  this  early  period 
Christians  are  mentioned;  for  in  the  reign  of  Nero, 
their  purity  being  hateful  to  the  corrupt,  Nero  aban 
doned  them  to  persecution.  In  the  darkness  of  mid 
night,  they  were  covered  with  pitch  and  set  on  fire  to 
light  the  streets  of  Rome,  and  this  singularity  has  been 
recorded.  But  their  system  of  morals  and  religion, 
though  it  was  the  new  birth  of  the  w^orld,  escaped 
all  notice. 

Paul,  who  was  a  Roman  citizen,  was  beheaded, 
just  outside  of  the  walls  of  the'  eternal  city ;  and  Peter, 
who  was  a  plebeian,  and  could  not  claim  the  distinction 
of  the  axe  and  the  block,  was  executed  on  the  cross, 
with  his  head  downwards  to  increase  the  pain  and  the 
indignity.  Do  you  think  the  Roman  emperor  took 
notice  of  the  names  of  these  men,  when  he  signed  their 
death- warrant  ?  And  yet,  as  they  poured  truth  into 
the  common  mind,  what  series  of  kings,  what  lines  of 
emperors  can  compare  with  them,  in  their  influence  on 
the  destinies  of  mankind  ? 

Yes,  reforms  in  society  are  only  effected  through  the 
28 


434  -OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

masses  of  the  people,  and  through  them  have  continually 
taken  place.  New  truths  have  been  successively  devel 
oped,  and,  becoming  the  common  property  of  the  human 
family,  have  improved  its  condition.  This  progress  is 
advanced  by  every  sect,  precisely  because  each  sect,  to 
obtain  vitality,  does  of  necessity  embody  a  truth ;  by 
every  political  party,  for  the  conflicts  of  party  are  the 
war  of  ideas  ;  by  every  nationality,  for  a  nation  cannot 
exist  as  such,  till  humanity  makes  it  a  special  trustee 
of  some  part  of  its  wealth  for  the  ultimate  benefit  of 
all.  The  irresistible  tendency  of  the  human  race  is 
therefore  to  advancement,  for  absolute  power  has  never 
succeeded,  and  can  never  succeed,  in  suppressing  a 
single  truth.  An  idea  once  revealed  may  find  its 
admission  into  every  living  breast  and  live  there. 
Like  God  it  becomes  immortal  and  omnipresent.  The 
movement  of  the  species  is  upward,  irresistibly  upward. 
The  individual  is  often  lost ;  Providence  never  disowns 
the  race.  No  principle  once  promulgated,  has  ever 
been  forgotten.  No  "  timely  tramp "  of  a  despot's 
foot  ever  trod  out  one  idea.  The  world  cannot  retro 
grade  j  the  dark  ages  cannot  return.  Dynasties  perish ; 
cities  are  buried  ;  nations  have  been  victims  to 
error,  or  martyrs  for  right ;  Humanity  has  always  been 
on  the  advance ;  gaining  maturity,  universality,  and 
power. 

Yes,  truth  is  immortal ;  it  cannot  be  destroyed ;  it 
is  invincible,  it  cannot  long  be  resisted.     Not  every 


THE    OFFICE    OF    THE    PEOPLE.  435 

great  principle  has  yet  been  generated ;  but  when  once 
proclaimed  and  diffused,  it  lives  without  end,  in  the  safe 
custody  of  the  race.  States  may  pass  away;  every 
just  principle  of  legislation  which  has  been  once  estab 
lished  will  endure.  Philosophy  has  sometimes  forgot 
ten  God;  a  great  people  never  did.  The  skepticism 
of  the  last  century  could  not  uproot  Christianity,  be 
cause  it  lived  in  the  hearts  of  the  millions.  Do  you 
think  that  infidelity  is  spreading  ?  Christianity  never 
lived  in  the  hearts  of  so  many  millions  as  at  this  mo 
ment.  The  forms  under  which  it  is  professed  may  de 
cay,  for  they,  like  all  that  is  the  work  of  man's  hands, 
are  subject  to  the  changes  and  chances  of  mortal  being ; 
but  the  spirit  of  truth  is  incorruptible ;  it  may  be  de 
veloped,  illustrated,  and  applied ;  it  never  can  die ;  it 
never  can  decline. 

No  truth  can  perish;  no  truth  can  pass  away. 
The  flame  is  undying,  though  generations  disappear. 
Wherever  moral  truth  has  started  into  being,  Human 
ity  claims  and  guards  the  bequest.  Each  generation 
*  gathers  together  the  imperishable  children  of  the  past, 
and  increases  them  by  new  sons  of  light,  alike  radiant 
with  immortality. 


WILLIAM   ELLERY    CHANNING. 

NOVEMBER,  1842. 

LET  us  rejoice,  that  in  our  own  day  the  great  doc 
trine  of  Free  Inquiry  has  been  renewed,  upheld,  and 
more  widely  applied,  by  the  refined  intelligence  and 
genial  benevolence  of  William  Ellery  Channing. '  Free 
Inquiry  was  the  great  rule  which  he  inculcated,  not  for 
the  maturity  of  age  only,  but  for  the  ardent  curiosity 
of  youth ;  for  he  knew  that  Freedom,  far  from  leading 
to  infidelity,  strives  for  certainty,  and  is  restless  in 
pursuit  of  a  well-grounded  conviction.  Freedom  of 
mind  he  claimed,  therefore,  for  every  pursuit  of  the 
human  faculties  ;  not  for  professors  only,  but  for 
scholars;  not  in  material  science  alone,  but  where* 
authority  had  been  most  revered,  in  theology  and  the 
church. 

Nor  did  he  confine  this  liberty  to  theoretic  specu 
lations  ;  he  claimed  it  also  in  politics,  and  the  theory 
of  social  relations.  Not  that  he  was  a  politician ;  Chan 
ning  could  be  classed  with  no  political  party.  He  stood 
aloof  from  them  all ;  and  sought  rather  behind  the 


WILLIAM    ELLERY    CHANNltfG.  437 

clouds  of  party  strife,  to  discover  the  universal  princi 
ples  that  sway  events  and  guide  the  centuries.  He 
turned  from  men  to  the  central  light ;  he  looked  towards 
the  region  of  absolute  truth,  of  perfect  justice.  The 
laws  of  the  moral  world,  as  they  come  from  the  Eter 
nal  Mind,  were  the  objects  of  his  study;  and  he 
claimed  for  every  man  the  right  of  calmly,  fearlessly 
contemplating  them,  and  of  seeking  to  carry  them  into 
the  affairs  of  life.  What  though  enthusiasts  might 
misunderstand  and  misapply  them?  His  only  cure 
for  impetuous  fanaticism,  was  to  seize*  clearly  on  the 
great  precept  which  it  blindly  adopted ;  to  substitute 
for  the  hastiness  of  zeal  the  persuasion  of  sincerity  and 
the  calmer  conduct  of  wisdom.  There  is  not  a  mo 
ment,  when  the  tendencies  to  reform  do  not  assume  a 
thousand  visionary,  strange  and  fantastic  shapes.  All 
this  could  not  startle  the  purposes  or  alarm  the  serene 
mind  of  Channing.  He  knew  that  there  was  no  way 
to  dispel  these  forms  of  terror  but  by  the  light  of  chari 
ty  and  reason ;  and  he  never  swerved  from  his  high 
career,  whether  of  subjecting  the  institutions  of  our 
times  to  discussion,  or  applying  the  rules  of  universal 
morality  to  the  business  of  the  nation. 

With  powers  of  such  astonishing  brilliancy  as  those 
which  Channing  possessed,  united  with  his  determined 
purpose  of  never  allowing  himself  to  be  blinded  to  the  ab 
stract  right  by  the  fact  of  the  existing  law,  it  is  not  won 
derful  that  his  career  should,  by  many,  have  been  con- 


438  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

templated  with  apprehension  and  even  with  dread. 
For  who  could  say  to  what  revolutions  the  manly 
assertion  of  natural  right  might  conduct  ?  Who  could 
set  a  limit  to  the  purposes  of  reform,  when  it  demanded 
immediately  the  application  of  absolute  truth?  But 
death  annihilates  that  alarm.  The  fear  of  sudden 
change  by  his  agency,  vanishes;  and,  from  the  re 
cesses  of  conscience,  immortal  witnesses  rise  up  to 
confirm  his  thrilling  oracles.  Prejudice  before  might 
confine  his  influence ;  by  death  prejudice  is  annihilated, 
and  the  echoes  of  his  eloquence  are  heard  beyond  its 
former  bounds ;  as  the  fragrance  of  precious  perfumes, 
when  the  vase  that  held  them  is  broken,  diffuses  itself 
abroad  without  limits. 

And  yet,  while  we  lift  up  our  own  minds  to  receive 
the  sublime  lessons  which  he  uttered,  if  we  look  back 
upon  his  life,  we  shall  find  his  love  of  reform  balanced 
by  a  love  of  order,  and  the  expansive  energies  of  his 
benevolence  restrained  by  a  spirit  of  conservatism. 
He  was  not  the  mariner  who  eagerly  lifts  the  anchor, 
spreads  all  his  canvas,  and  embarks  on  the  ocean 
of  experiment;  he  resembled  rather  the  seer,  who 
stands  on  the  high  cliff  along  the  shore,  and  gazes 
to  see  what  wind  is  rising,  and  gives  his  prayers,  and 
his  counsels  and  benedictions  to  the  more  adventurous, 
who  set  sail.  And  sometimes  he  would  call  back  the 
enterprising  reformer ;  nor  would  he  attempt  progress 


WILLIAM    ELLERY    CHANNING.  439 

by  methods  of  disorder  and  riot,  or  even  of  party 
organization;  he  would  rather  postpone  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  right  than  seek  to  assert  it  by  blood 
shed  and  violence ;  like  the  Jewish  mother  who  sub 
mitted  to  be  withheld  from  her  offspring  for  a  season, 
through  fear  lest,  otherwise,  her  child  should  be  rent 
in  twain. 

And  yet  this  abhorrence  of  violence  hardly  partook 
of  timidity,  certainly  did  not  spring  from  a  deficiency 
of  decision.  Did  you  consider  his  delicate  organ 
ization,  his  light  and  frail  frame,  his  sensitiveness  to 
agreeable  impressions,  the  exquisite  culture  of  his  taste, 
you  might  apprehend  a  want  of  firmness ;  but  it  was 
not  so.  He  towered  above  the  mediocrity  of  society, 
like  the  delicate  and  airy  shafts  of  Melrose  Abbey,  of 
which  the  foliaged  tracery  seems  woven  of  osier 
wreaths,  and  yet,  as  if  changed  by  a  fairy's  spell, 
proves  to  be  of  stone.  Like  them  his  purposes 
were  durable,  unyielding,  and  aspiring  to  the  skies. 
Even  sympathy,  that  which  he  loved  most,  he  sacrificed 
to  duty ;  and  gave  up  the  present  applause  of  those 
by  whom  he  was  surrounded,  rather  than  fail  to  win 
the  world  for  his  audience,  and  coming  generations  for 
his  fame. 

This  firmness  rested  in  an  entire  faith  in  moral 
power  to  renovate  the  race.  Not  the  organized 
union  of  men,  not  temperance  societies,  not  abolition 


440  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

societies,  not  conventions ;  MORAL  POWER  was  to  him 
the  Egeria  that  dictated,  the  energy  that  accomplished 
reform.  Hence,  while  he  objected  to  associations,  he 
was  ever  ready  to  advocate  the  great  moral  purposes 
for  which  men  come  together.  Was  he  not  among  the 
first  to  rebuke  the  international  selfishness  that  has  so 
long  held  the  commerce  of  the  world  in  bonds  ?  Was 
he  not  among  the  first  to  raise  his  voice  against  the 
criminality  of  war,  the  opprobrium  of  humanity  ?  Who 
like  him  gathered  the  crowd  to  recognise  the  great 
lesson  of  temperance,  carrying  restoration  to  the  de 
sponding  and  feeble  of  will  ?  Wlio  like  him  asserted 
the  moral  dignity  of  man,  irrespective  of  wealth  and 
rank?  Indeed,  one  could  hardly  hear  him  on  any 
public  occasion,  or  even  in  private,  but  the  great  truth 
of  man's  equality,  as  a  consequence  of  his  divine  birth, 
struggled  for  utterance.  He  knew  that  man  was  made 
in  the  image  of  God ;  that  the  gift  of  reason  opened  to 
him  the  path  to  the  knowledge  of  creation,  and  to  mas 
tery  over  its  powers.  Having  the  highest  reverence 
for  genius,  he  yet  acknowledged  the  image  of  the  divine 
original  in  every  human  being ;  and  how  often  have  his 
teachings  repeated  to  many  of  us  the  doctrine  so  well 
expressed  by  one  of  our  own  poets  : 

"  Nor  scour  the  seas,  nor  sift  mankind, 
A  poet  or  a  friend  to  find ; 
Behold,  he  watches  at  the  door, 
Behold  his  shadow  on  the  floor ; 


WILLIAM    ELLERY    CHANNING.  44] 

*      *      *      the  Pariah  hind 
Admits  thee  to  the  Perfect  Mind." 
Hence  Channing  became   the  advocate   of  equality ; 
recognised  the  power  of  the  people  as  the  great  result 
of  the  modern  centuries ;  and,  knowing  well  that  labor 
is  the  lot  of  man,  that  every  mechanic  art  must  be  ex 
ercised,  everv   service  in  life  fulfilled,  he  sought  to 

i/ 

dignify  labor  and  exalt  its  character ;  not  to  lift  the 
laborer  out  of  his  class,  but  to  elevate  that  class  into 
the  highest  regions  of  moral  culture  and  enjoyment. 
And  his  efforts  were  in  part  at  least  rewarded.  His 
words  reached  those  for  whose  benefit  they  were 
spoken ;  and  at  his  funeral,  next  to  the  fortitude  with 
which  his  immediate  friends  had  learned  from  him  to 
bear  affliction,  the  most  touching  spectacle  was  to  see 
the  laborers  gathering  near  the  aisles  to  pay  one  last 
tribute  of  gratitude  to  the  remains  of  their  counsellor. 

Nor  could  the  clear  mind  of  Channing  turn  from 
following  his  convictions  to  their  results,  with  all  the 
power  of  dialectics  that  gained  its  warmth  from  be 
nevolence,  its  energy  from  moral  conviction.  I  remem 
ber  well  the  day  when  he  first  publicly  appeared  as  the 
advocate  of  the  negro  slave ;  after  a  discourse  of 
heart-rending  eloquence,  he  did  not  so  much  complain 
of,  as  regret  the  want  of  sympathy.  His  gentle  voice 
is  hushed ;  his  eye  will  not  again  flash  on  us  indigna 
tion;  the  spiritual  life  that  beamed  from  him  is  re 
moved.  Now  that  he  is  in  his  grave,  now  that  the  most 


442  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

timid  can  no  longer  fear  from  his  influence  divisions  in 
church  or  in  society,  let  us  honor  his  memory  by  own 
ing,  that,  in  his  main  doctrine,  he  was  in  the  right. 
Nor  was  his  declaration  respecting  slavery  an  accidental 
phenomenon  in  his  career ;  it  lay  at  the  very  heart  and 
core  of  his  whole  ^system  of  theology.  His  was  a  spirit 
that  in  its  rapt  trances  sought  intimate  communion 
with  the  Divine ;  yet,  shrinking  alike  from  the  terror  of 

fixed  decrees  and  the  fatalism  of  Pantheism,  binding 

» 

alike  destiny  and  chance  to  the  footstool  of  God's  throne, 
he  was  from  the  first  an  advocate  for  the  free  agency  of 
man.  This  was  the  great  central  point  of  his  theology, 
his  morals,  his  metaphysics,  his  politics.  Human  free 
dom  under  the  sanction  of  moral  power,  human  freedom 
as  the  prerogative  of  mind,  human  freedom  as  the  ne 
cessity  of  consciousness,  human  freedom  as  the  in 
destructible  principle  in  the  citadel  of  conscience, — this 
was  his  whole  theoiy ;  this  animated  his  life ;  this 
alone  led  him  into  the  fields  of  controversy ;  and  in  the 
full  maturity  of  years,  with  that  faith,  and  with  the 
deep  reverence  for  the  Deity,  which  contemplates  him 
always,  and  sees  him  every  where,  he  could  not  but 
rush  to  the  conclusion  that  slavery  is  a  wrong ;  a  crime 
against  humanity  as  well  as  a  crime  against  God. 

It  was  by  degrees,  after  a  struggle  of  years, 
that  he  burst  the  limits  of  social  and  sectarian  narrow 
ness,  and  rising  ever  higher  and  higher,  became  the 
advocate  of  universal  truths  and  the  champion  of  hu- 


WILLIAM    ELLERY    CHANNING.  443 

manity.  Not  a  city,  not  a  faction,  the  mystic  voice  of 
the  universe  inspired  him ;  as  I  have  seen  an  ^Eolian 
harp  placed  at  first  where  it  failed  to  respond  to  the 
air,  then  lifted  from  bough  to  bough,  higher  and  still 
higher,  till  at  last  it  reached  a  point,  where  the  winds 
of  heaven  breathed  through  it  freely,  and  called  forth 
music  that  seemed  to  descend  from  above.  Channing 
was  at  first  touched  by  the  influence  of  a  sect  and  a 
party,  by  the  spirit  of  locality  and  narrower  engage 
ments;  but  he  moved  ever  upward;  till  soaring  far 
beyond  a  parish  or  a  caste,  a  political  faction  or  a  lim 
ited  polemical  theology,  in  the  higher  sphere  of  his 
existence,  the  spirit  of  the  world  rushed  fervidly  amidst 
the  trembling  strings  ;  and 

From  his  sweet  harp  flew  forth 

Immortal  harmonies,  of  power  to  still 
All  passions  born  on  earth, 
And  draw  the  ardent  will 
Its  destiny  of  goodness  to  fulfil. 


ORATION, 

DELIVERED   AT  THE  COMMEMORATION,  IN  WASHINGTON,   Of  THE 
DEATH  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON,  JUNE  27,  1845. 

THE  men  of  the  American  revolution  are  no  more. 
That  age  of  creative  power  has  passed  away.  The 
last  surviving  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
has  long  since  left  the  earth.  Washington  lies  near 
his  own  Potomac,  surrounded  by  his  family  and  his 
servants.  Adams,  the  colossus  of  independence,  re 
poses  in  the  modest  grave-yard  of  his  native  region 
Jefferson  sleeps  on  the  heights  of  his  own  Monticello, 
whence  his  eye  overlooked  his  beloved  Virginia.  Mad 
ison,  the  last  survivor  of  the  men  who  made  our  con 
stitution,  lives  only  in  our  hearts.  But  who  shall  say 
that  the  heroes,  in  whom  the  image  of  God  shone  most 
brightly,  do  not  exist  for  ever  ?  They  were  filled  with 
the  vast  conceptions  which  called  America  into  being ; 
they  lived  for  those  conceptions ;  and  their  deeds 
praise  them. 

We  are  met  to  commemorate  the  virtues  of  one 
who  shed  his  blood  for  our  independence,  took  part  in 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.         445 

winning  the  territory  and  forming  the  early  institutions 
of  the  West,  and  was  imbued  with  all  the  great  ideas 
which  constitute  the  moral  force  of  our  country.  On 
the  spot  where  he  gave  his  solemn  fealty  to  the  peo 
ple — here,  where  he  pledged  himself  before  the  world 
to  freedom,  to  the  constitution,  and  to  the  laws — we 
meet  to  pay  our  tribute  to  the  memory  of  the  last  great 
name,  which  gathers  round  itself  all  the  associations 
that  form  the  glory  of  America. 

South  Carolina  gave  a  birth-place  to  ANDREW 
JACKSON.  On  its  remote  frontier,  far  up  on  the 
forest-clad  banks  of  the  Catawba,  in  a  region  where 
the  settlers  were  just  beginning  to  cluster,  his  eye  first 
saw  the  light.  There  his  infancy  sported  in  the  an 
cient  forests,  and  his  mind  was  nursed  to  freedom  by 
their  influence.  He  was  the  youngest  son  of  an  Irish 
emigrant,  of  Scottish  origin,  who,  two  years  after  the 
great  war  of  Frederic  of  Prussia,  fled  to  America  for 
relief  from  indigence  and  oppression.  His  birth  was  in 
1767,  at  a  time  when  the  people  of  our  land  were  but 
a  body  of  dependent  colonists,  scarcely  more  than  two 
millions  in  number,  scattered  along  an  immense  coast, 
with  no  army,  or  navy,  or  union ;  and  exposed  to  the 
attempts  of  England  to  control  America  by  the  aid  of 
military  force.  His  boyhood  grew  up  in  the  midst  of 
the  contest  with  Great  Britain.  The  first  great  politi 
cal  truth  that  reached  his  heart,  was,  that  all  men  are 


446  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES, 

free  and  equal ;  the  first  great  fact  that  beamed  on  his 
understanding,  was  his  country's  independence. 

The  strife,  as  it  increased,  came  near  the  shades  of 
his  own  upland  residence.  As  a  boy  of  thirteen,  he 
witnessed  the  scenes  of  horror  that  accompany  civil 
war ;  and  when  but  a  year  older,  with  an  elder  brother, 
he  shouldered  his  musket,  and  went  forth  to  strike  a 
blow  for  his  country. 

Joyous  era  for  America  and  for  humanity !  But 
for  him,  the  orphan  boy,  the  events  were  full  of  agony 
and  grief.  His  father  was  no  more.  His  oldest 
brother  fell  a  victim  to  the  war  of  the  revolution ; 
another,  his  companion  in  arms,  died  of  wounds 
received  in  their  joint  captivity ;  his  mother  went 
down  to  the  grave  a  victim  to  grief  and  efforts  to 
rescue  her  sons ;  and  when  peace  came,  he  was  alone 
in  the  world,  with  no  kindred  to  cherish  him,  and 
little  inheritance  but  his  own  untried  powers. 

The  nation  which  emancipated  itself  from  British 
rule  organizes  itself;  the  confederation  gives  way  to 
the  constitution ;  the  perfecting  of  that  constitution — 
that  grand  event  of  the  thousand  years  of  modern  his 
tory — is  accomplished;  America  exists  as  a  people, 
gains  unity  as  a  government,  and  assumes  its  place 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

The  next  great  office  to  be  performed  by  America, 
is  the  taking  possession  of  the  wilderness.  The  mag 
nificent  western  valley  cried  out  to  the  civilization  of 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.         447 

popular  power,  that  the  season  had  come  for  its  occu 
pation  by  cultivated  man. 

Behold,  then,  our  orphan  hero,  sternly  earnest, 
consecrated  to  humanity  from  childhood  by  sorrow, 
having  neither  father,  nor  mother,  nor  sister,  nor  sur 
viving  brother,  so  young  and  yet  so  solitary,  and 
therefore  bound  the  more  closely  to  collective  man — 
behold  him  elect  for  his  lot  to  go  forth  and  assist  in 
laying  the  foundations  of  society  in  the  great  valley  of 
the  Mississippi. 

At  the  very  time  when  Washington  was  pledging  his 
own  and  future  generations  to  the  support  of  the 
popular  institutions  which  were  to  be  the  light  of  the 
human  race — at  the  time  when  the  governments  of  the 
Old  World  were  rocking  to  their  centre,  and  the 
mighty  fabric  that  had  come  down  from  the  middle 
ages  was  falling  in — the  adventurous  Jackson,  in  the 
radiant  glory  and  boundless  hope  and  confident  in 
trepidity  of  twenty-one,  plunged  into  the  wilderness, 
crossed  the  great  mountain-barrier  that  divides  the 
western  waters  from  the  Atlantic,  followed  the  paths  of 
the  early  hunters  and  fugitives,  and,  not  content  with 
the  nearer  neighborhood  to  his  parent  State,  went  still 
further  and  further  to  the  west,  till  he  found  his  home 
in  the  most  beautiful  region  on  the  Cumberland. 
There,  from  the  first,  he  was  recognised  as  the  great 
pioneer ;  and  in  his  courage,  the  coming  emigrants 
were  sure  to  find  a  shield. 


448  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

The  lovers  of  adventure  began  to  pour  themselves 
into  the  territory,  whose  delicious  climate  and  fertile 
soil  invited  the  presence  of  social  man.  The  hunter, 
with  his  rifle  and  his  axe,  attended  by  his  wife  and 
children;  the  herdsman,  driving  the  few  cattle  that 
were  to  multiply  as  they  browsed ;  the  cultivator  of 
the  soil, — all  came  to  the  inviting  region.  Wherever 
the  bending  mountains  opened  a  pass — wherever  the 
buffaloes  and  the  beasts  of  the  forest  had  made  a  trace, 
these  sons  of  nature,  children  of  humanity,  in  the 
highest  sentiment  of  personal  freedom,  came  to  oc 
cupy  the  lovely  wilderness,  whose  prairies  blossomed 
every  where  profusely  with  wild  flowers — whose 
woods  in  spring  put  to  shame,  by  their  magnificence, 
the  cultivated  gardens  of  man. 

And  now  that  these  unlettered  fugitives,  educated 
only  by  the  spirit  of  freedom,  destitute  of  dead  letter 
erudition,  but  sharing  the  living  ideas  of  the  age,  had 
made  their  homes  in  the  West,  what  would  follow? 
Would  they  degrade  themselves  to  ignorance  and  infi 
delity  ?  Would  they  make  the  solitudes  of  the  desert  ex 
cuses  for  licentiousness  ?  Would  the  hatred  of  exces 
sive  restraint  lead  them  to  live  in  unorganized  society, 
destitute  of  laws  and  fixed  institutions  ? 

At  a  time  when  European  society  was  becoming 
broken  in  pieces,  scattered,  disunited,  and  resolved 
into  its  elements,  a  scene  ensued  in  Tennessee,  than 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON  449 

which  nothing  more  beautifully  grand  is  recorded  in 
the  annals  of  the  race. 

These  adventurers  in  the  wilderness  longed  to 
come  together  in  organized  society.  The  overshadow 
ing  genius  of  their  time  inspired  them  with  good 
designs,  and  filled  them  with  the  counsels  of  wisdom. 
Dwellers  in  the  forest,  freest  of  the  free,  bound  in  the 
spirit,  they  came  up  by  their  representatives,  on  foot, 
on  horseback,  through  the  forest,  along  the  streams,  by 
the  buffalo  traces,  by  the  Indian  paths,  by  the  blazed 
forest  avenues,  to  meet  in  convention  among  the  moun 
tains  of  Knoxville,  and  devise  for  themselves  a  consti 
tution.  Andrew  Jackson  was  there,  the  greatest  man 
of  them  all — modest,  bold,  determined,  demanding 
Nothing  for  himself,  and  shrinking  from  nothing  that 
his  heart  approved. 

The  convention  came  together  on  the  eleventh  day 
of  January,  1796,  and  finished  its  work  on  the  sixth 
day  of  February.  How  had  the  wisdom  of  the  Old 
World  vainly  tasked  itself  to  devise  constitutions,  that 
could,  at  least,  be  the  subject  of  experiment.  The  men 
of  Tennessee,  in  less  than  twenty-five  days,  perfected  a 
fabric,  which,  in  its  essential  forms,  was  to  last  for 
ever.  They  came  together,  full  of  faith  and  reverence, 
of  love  to  humanity,  of  confidence  in  truth.  In  the 
simplicity  of  wisdom  they  constructed  their  system, 
acting  under  higher  influences  than  they  were  con 
scious  of; 

29 


450  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

They  wrought  in  sad  sincerity, 

Themselves  from  God  they  could  not  free ; 

They  builded  better  than  they  knew ; 

The  conscious  stones  to  beauty  grew. 
In  the  instrument  which  they  adopted,  they  em 
bodied  their  faith  in  God,  and  in  the  immortal  nature 
of  man.  They  gave  the  right  of  suffrage  to  every 
freeman ;  they  vindicated  the  sanctity  of  reason,  by 
securing  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press ;  they 
reverenced  the  voice  of  God,  as  it  speaks  in  the  soul, 
by  asserting  the  indefeasible  right  of  man  to  worship 
the  Infinite  according  to  his  conscience ;  they  estab 
lished  the  freedom  and  equality  of  elections  ;  and  they 
demanded  from  every  future  legislator  a  solemn  oath, 
"  never  to  consent  to  any  act  or  thing  whatever  that 
shall  have  even  a  tendency  to  lessen  the  rights  of  the 
people." 

These  majestic  lawgivers,  wiser  than  the  Solons, 
and  Lycurguses,  and  Numas  of  the  Old  World, — these 
prophetic  founders  of  a  State,  who  embodied  in  their 
constitution  the  sublimest  truths  of  humanity,  acted 
without  reference  to  human  praises.  They  took  no 
pains  to  vaunt  their  deeds  ;  and  when  their  work  was 
done,  knew  not  that  they  had  finished  one  of  the  sub 
limest  acts  ever  performed  among  men.  They  left  no 
record,  rs  to  whose  agency  was  conspicuous,  whose 
eloquence  swayed,  whose  generous  will  predominated  ; 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.        451 

nor  should  we  know,  but  for  tradition,  confirmed  by 
what  followed  among  themselves. 

The  men  of  Tennessee  were  now  a  people,  and 
they  were  to  send  forth  a  man  to  stand  for  them  in  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States — that  avenue  to  glory- 
that  liome  of  eloquence — the  citadel  of  popular  power ; 
and,  with  one  consent,  they  united  in  selecting  the 
foremost  man  among  their  lawgivers' — •  ANDREW 
JACKSON. 

The  love  of  his  constituents  followed  him  to  the 
American  Congress ;  and  he  had  served  but  a  single 
term  when  the  State  of  Tennessee  made  him  one  of 
its  representatives  in  the  American  Senate,  of  which 
Jefferson  was  at  the  time  the  presiding  officer. 

Thus,  when  he  was  scarcely  more  than  thirty,  he 
had  guided  the  settlement  of  the  wilderness;  swayed 
the  deliberations  of  a  people  in  establishing  their  fun 
damental  laws ;  acted  as  their  representative,  and  again 
as  the  representative  of  his  organized  commonwealth, 
disciplined  to  a  knowledge  of  the  power  of  the  people 
and  the  power  of  the  States ;  the  associate  of  repub 
lican  statesmen,  the  friend  and  companion  of  Jefferson. 

The  men  who  framed  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  many  of  them  did  not  know  the  innate  life  and 
self-preserving  energy  of  their  worku  They  fearetl  that 
freedonfc  could  not  endure,  and  they  planned  a  strong 
government  for  its  protection.  .  During  his  short  career 
in  Congress,  Jackson  showed  his  quiet,  deeply-seated, 


452  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

innate,  intuitive  faith  in  human  freedom,  and  in  the  in 
stitutions  which  rested  on  that  faith.  He  was  ever,  by 
his  votes  and  opinions,  found  among  those  who  had  con 
fidence  in  humanity ;  and  in  the  great  division  of  minds, 
this  child  of  the  woodlands,  this  representative  of  forest 
life  in  the  West,  appeared  modestly  and  firmly  on  the 
side  of  liberty.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  to  doubt  the 
right  of  man  to  the  free  development  of  his  powers  ;  it 
did  not  occur  to  him  to  place  a  guardianship  over  the 
people ;  it  did  not  occur  to  him  to  seek  to  give  dura 
bility  to  popular  institutions,  by  conceding  to  govern 
ment  a  strength  independent  of  popular  will. 

From  the  first,  he  was  attached  to  the  fundamental 
doctrines  of  popular  power,  and  of  the  policy  that 
favors  it;  and  though  his  reverence  for  Washington 
surpassed  his  reverence  for  any  human  being,  he  voted 
against  the  address  from  the  House  of  Representatives 
to  Washington  on  his  retirement,  because  its  language 
appeared  to  sanction  the  financial  policy  which  he  be 
lieved  hostile  to  the  true  principles  of  a  republic. 

During  his  period  of  service  in  the  Senate,  Jackson 
was  elected  major  general  by  the  brigadiers  and  field 
officers  of  the  militia  of  Tennessee.  Resigning  his 
place  in  the  Senate,  he  was  made  judge  of  the  supreme 
court  in  law  and  equity ;  such  was  the  confidence  in 
his  clearness  of  judgment,  his  vigor  of  will,  anc^  his  in 
tegrity  of  purpose,  to  deal  justly  among  the  turbulent 
who  crowded  into  the  new  settlements  of  Tennessee. 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.          453 

Thus,  in  the  short  period  of  nine  years,  Andrew 
Jackson  was  signalized  by  as  many  evidences  of  public 
esteem  as  could  fall  to  the  lot  of  man.  The  pioneer 
of  the  wilderness,  the  defender  of  its  stations,  he  was 
the  lawgiver  of  a  new  people,  then'  sole  representative 
in  Congress,  the  representative  of  the  State  in  the 
Senate,  the  highest  in  military  command,  the  highest 
in  judicial  office.  He  seemed  to  be  recognised  as  the 
first  in  love  of  liberty,  in  the  science  of  legislation,  in 
sagacity,  and  integrity. 

Delighting  in  private  life,  he  would  have  resigned  his 
place  on  the  bench ;  but  the  whole  country  demanded 
his  continued  service.  "  Nature,"  they  cried,  "  never 
designed  that  your  powers  of  thought  and  indepen 
dence  of  mind  should  be  lost  in  retirement."  But 
after  a  few  years,  relieving  himself  from  the  cares  of 
the  court,  he  gave  himself  to  the  activity  and  the  inde 
pendent  life  of  a  husbandman.  He  carried  into  retire 
ment  the  fame  of  natural  intelligence,  and  was  cher 
ished  as  "a  prompt,  frank,  and  ardent  soul."  His 
vigor  of  character  gave  him  the  lead  among  all  with 
whom  he  associated,  and  his  name  was  familiarly  spo 
ken  round  every  hearth-stone  in  Tennessee.  Men 
loved  to  discuss  his  qualities.  All  discerned  his  power, 
and  when  the  vehemence  and  impetuosity  of  his  nature 
were  observed  upon,  there  were  not  wanting  those  who 
saw,  beneath  the  blazing  fires  of  his  genius,  the  solidity 
of  his  judgment. 


454  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

His  hospitable  roof  sheltered  the  emigrant  and  the 
pioneer;  and,  as  they  made  their  way  to  their  new 
homes,  they  filled  the  mountain  sides  and  the  valleys 
with  his  praise. 

Connecting  himself,  for  a  season,  with  a  man  of 
business,  Jackson  soon  discerned  the  misconduct  of  his 
associate.  It  marked  his  character,  that  he  insisted, 
himself,  on  paying  every  obligation  that  had  been  con 
tracted;  and,  rather  than  endure  the  vassalage  of 
debt,  he  instantly  parted  with  the  rich  domain  which 
his  early  enterprise  had  acquired — with  his  own  man 
sion — with  the  fields  which  he  himself  had  first  tamed 
to  the  ploughshare — with  the  forest  whose  trees  were 
as  familiar  to  him  as  his  friends — and  chose  rather  to 
dwell,  for  a  time,  in  a  rude  log  cabin,  in  the  pride 
of  independence  and  integrity. 

On  all  great  occasions,  his  influence  was  deferred 
to.  When  Jefferson  had  acquired  for  the  country 
the  whole  of  Louisiana,  and  there  seemed  some 
hesitancy,  on  the  part  of  Spain,  to  acknowledge  our 
possession,  the  services  of  Jackson  were  solicited  by 
the  national  administration,  and  would  have  been  called 
into  full  exercise,  but  for  the  peaceful  termination  of 
the  incidents  that  occasioned  the  summons. 

In  the  long  series  of  aggressions  on  the  freedom  of 
the  seas,  and  the  rights  of  the  American  flag,  Jackson, 
though  in  his  inland  home  the  roar  of  the  breakers 
was  never  heard  and  the  mariner  never  was  seen,  re- 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.         455 

sentecl  the  injuries  wantonly  inflicted  on  our  commerce 
and  on  our  sailors,  and  adhered  to  the  new  maritime 
code  of  republicanism. 

When  the  continuance  of  wrong  compelled  the 
nation  to  resort  to  arms,  Jackson,  led  by  the  instinctive 
knowledge  of  his  own  greatness,  yet  with  true  modesty 
of  nature,  confessed  his  willingness  to  be  employed  on 
the  Canada  frontier ;  and  aspired  to  the  command  to 
which  Winchester  was  appointed.  We  may  ask,  what 
would  have  been  the  result,  if  the  conduct  of  the 
north-western  army  had,  at  the  opening  of  the  war, 
been  intrusted  to  a  man  who,  in  action,  was  ever  so 
fortunate,  that  he  seemed  to  have  made  destiny  capitu 
late  to  his  vehement  will  ? 

The  path  of  duty  led  him  in  another  direction.  On 
the  declaration  of  war,  twenty-five  hundred  volunteers 
had  risen  at  his  word  to  follow  his  standard ;  but,  by 
countermanding  orders  from  the  seat  of  government, 
the  movement  was  without  effect. 

A  new  and  greater  danger  hung  over  the  West. 
The  Indian  tribes  were  to  make  one  last*  effort  to 
restore  it  to  its  solitude,  and  recover  it  for  savage  life. 
The  brave,  relentless  Shawnees — who,  from  time  im 
memorial,  had  strolled  from  the  waters  of  the  Ohio  to 
the  rivers  of  Alabama — were  animated  by  Tecumseh 
and  his  brother  the  Prophet,  speaking  to  them  as 
with  the  voice  of  the  Great  Spirit,  and  urging  the 
Creek  nation  to  desperate  massacres.  Their  ruthless 


456  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

cruelty  spared  neither  sex  nor  age ;  the  infant  and 
its  mother,  the  planter  and  his  family,  who  had  fled 
for  refuge  to  the  fortress,  the  garrison  that  capitu 
lated, — all  were  slain,  and  not  a  vestige  of  defence  was 
left  in  the  country.  The  cry  of  the  West  demanded 
Jackson  for  its  defender ;  and  though  his  arm  was  then 
fractured  by  a  ball,  and  hung  in  a  sling,  he  placed  him 
self  at  the  head  of  the  volunteers  of  Tennessee,  and 
resolved  to  terminate  for  ever  the  hereditary  struggle. 

Who  can  tell  the  horrors  of  that  campaign  ?  Who 
can  paint  rightly  the  obstacles  which  Jackson  over 
came — mountains,  the  scarcity  of  untenanted  forests, 
winter,  the  failure  of  supplies  from  the  settlements,  the 
insubordination  of  troops,  mutiny,  menaces  of  deser 
tion?  Who  can  measure  the  wonderful  power  over 
men,  by  which  his  personal  prowess  and  attractive 
energy  drew  them  in  midwinter  from  their  homes', 
across  mountains  and  morasses,  and  through  trackless 
deserts  ?  Who  can  describe  the  personal  heroism  of 
Jackson,  never  sparing  himself,  beyond  any  of  his  men 
encountering  toil  and  fatigue,  sharing  every  labor  of  the 
camp  and  of  the  march,  foremost  in  every  danger ; 
giving  up  his  horse  to  the  invalid  soldier,  while  he 
himself  waded  through  the  swamps  on  foot?  None 
equalled  him  in  power  of  endurance ;  and  the  private 
soldiers,  as  they  found  him  passing  them  on  the  march, 
exclaimed,  "  He  is  as  tough  as  the  hickory."  "  Yes," 
they  cried  to  one  another,  "  there  goes  Old  Hickory  !  " 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.         457 

Then  followed  the  memorable  events  of  the  double 
battles  of  Emuckfaw,  and  the  glorious  victory  of  Tolio- 
peka,  where  the  anger  of  the  general  against  the  falter 
ing  was  more  appalling  than  the  war-whoop  and  the 
rifle  of  the  savage ;  the  fiercely  contested  field  of 
Enotochopco,  where  the  general,  as  he  attempted  to 
draw  his  sword  to  cut  down  a  flying  colonel  who 
was  leading  a  regiment  from  the  field,  broke  again  the 
arm  which  was  but  newly  knit  together ;  and,  quietly 
replacing  it  in  the  sling,  with  his  commanding  voice 
arrested  the  flight  of  the  troops,  and  himself  led  them 
back  to  victory. 

In  six  short  months  of  vehement  action,  the  most 
terrible  Indian  war  in  our  annals  was  brought  to  a 
close ;  the  prophets  were  silenced ;  the  consecrated 
region  of  the  Creek  nation  reduced.  Through  scenes 
of  blood,  the  avenging  hero  sought  only  the  path  to 
peace.  Thus  Alabama,  a  part  of  Mississippi,  a  part 
of  his  own  Tennessee,  and  the  highway  to  the  Eloridas, 
were  his  gifts  to  the  Union.  These  were  his  trophies. 

Genius  as  extraordinary  as  military  events  can  call 
forth,  was  summoned  into  action  in  this  rapid,  effi 
cient,  and  most  fortunately  conducted  Avar.  The  hero 
descended  the  water-courses  of  Alabama  to  the  neigh 
borhood  of  Pensacola,  and  longed  to  plant  the  eagle  of 
his  country  on  its  battlements. 

Time  would  fail,  and  words  be  wanting,  were  I  to 
dwell  on  the  magical  influencee  of  his  appearance  in 


458  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

New  Orleans.  His  presence  dissipated  gloom  and 
dispelled  alarm ;  at  once  lie  changed  the  aspect  of 
despair  into  a  confidence  of  security  and  a  hope  of 
acquiring  glory.  Every  man  knows  the  tale  of  the 
sudden,  and  yet  deliberate  daring  which  led  him,  on 
the  night  of  the  twenty-third  of  December,  to  precipi 
tate  his  little  army  on  his  foes,  in  the  thick  darkness, 
before  they  grew  familiar  with  then:  encampment,  scat 
tering  dismay  through  veteran  regiments  of  England, 
defeating  them,  and  arresting  their  progress  by  a 
far  inferior  force. 

Who  shall  recount  the  counsels  of  prudence,  the 
kindling  words  of  eloquence,  that  gushed  from  his  lips 
to  cheer  his  soldiers,  his  skirmishes  and  battles,  till 
that  eventful  morning  when  the  day  at  Bunker  Hill 
had  its  fulfilment  in  the  glorious  battle  of  New  Or 
leans,  and  American  independence  stood  before  the 
world  in  the  majesty  of  triumphant  power  ! 

These  were  great  victories  for  the  nation;  over 
himself  he  won  a  greater.  Had  not  Jackson  been 
renowned  for  the  impetuosity  of  his  passions,  for  his 
defiance  of  others'  authority,  and  the  unbending  vigor 
of  his  self-will?  Behold  the  savior  of  Louisiana,  all 
garlanded  with  victory,  viewing  around  him  the  city  he 
had  preserved,  the  maidens  and  children  whom  his 
heroism  had  protected,  yet  standing  in  the  presence  of 
a  petty  judge,  who  gratifies  his  wounded  vanity  by  an 
abuse  of  his  judicial  power.  Every  breast  in  the 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.          459 

crowded  audience  heaves  with  indignation.  He,  the 
passionate,  the  impetuous, — he  whose  power  was  to 
be  humbled,  whose  honor  questioned,  whose  laurels 
tarnished,  alone  stood  sublimely  serene ;  and  when  the 
craven  judge  trembled,  and  faltered,  and  dared  not 
proceed,  himself,  the  arraigned  one,  bade  him  take 
courage,  and  stood  by  the  law  even  when  the  law  was 
made  the  instrument  of  insult  and  wrong  on  himself 
at  the  moment  of  his  most  perfect  claim  to  the  highest 
civic  honors. 

His  country,  when  it  grew  to  hold  many  more  mil 
lions,  the  generation  that  then  was  coming  in,  has  risen 
up  to  do  homage  to  the  magnanimity  of  that  hour. 
Woman,  whose  feeling  is  always  right,  did  honor  from 
the  first  to  the  purity  of  his  heroism.  The  people  of 
Louisiana,  to  the  latest  age,  will  cherish  his  name  as 
their  greatest  benefactor. 

The  culture  of  Jackson's  mind  had  been  much  pro 
moted  by  his  services  and  associations  in  the  war. 
His  discipline  of  himself  as  the  chief  in  command,  his 
intimate  relations  with  men  like  Livingston,  the  won 
derful  deeds  in  which  he  bore  a  part,  all  matured  his 
judgment  and  mellowed  his  character. 

Peace  came  with  its  delights ;  once  more  the  coun 
try  rushed  forward  in  the  development  of  its  powers ; 
once  more  the  arts  of  industry  healed  the  wounds 
that  war  had  inflicted  ;  and,  from  commerce  and 
agriculture  and  manufactures,  wealth  gushed  abun- 


460  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

dantly  under  the  free  activity  of  unrestrained  enter 
prise.  And  Jackson  returned  to  his  own  fields  and  his 
own  pursuits,  to  cherish  his  plantation,  to  care  for  his 
servants,  to  enjoy  the  affection  of  the  most  kind  and 
devoted  wife,  whom  he  respected  with  the  gentlest 
deference,  and  loved  with  a  spotless  purity. 

There  he  stood,  like  one  of  the  mightiest  forest 
trees  of  his  own  West,  vigorous  and  colossal,  sending 
its  summit  to  the  skies,  and  growing  on  its  native  soil 
in  wild  and  inimitable  magnificence,  careless  of  behold 
ers.  From  every  part  of  the  country  he  received  ap 
peals  to  his  political  ambition,  and  the  severe  modesty 
of  his  well-balanced  mind  turned  them  all  aside.  He 
was  happy  in  his  farm,  happy  in  seclusion,  happy  in 
his  family,  happy  within  liimself. 

But  the  passions  of  the  southern  Indians  were  not 
allayed  by  the  peace  with  Great  Britain ;  and  foreign 
emissaries  were  still  among  them,  to  inflame  and  direct 
their  malignity.  Jackson  was  called  forth  by  his 
country  to  restrain  the  cruelty  of  the  treacherous  and 
unsparing  Seminoles.  It  was  in  the  train  of  the  events 
of  this  war  that  he  placed  the  American  eagle  on  St. 
Mark's  and  above  the  ancient  towers  of  St.  Augustine. 
His  deeds  in  that  war,  of  themselves,  form  a  monument 
to  human  power,  to  the  celerity  of  his  genius,  to  the 
creative  fertility  of  his  resources,  to  his  intuitive 
sagacity.  As  Spain,  in  his  judgment,  had  committed 
aggressions,  he  would  have  emancipated  her  islands  ;  of 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.         461 

the  Havana,  lie  caused  the  reconnaissance  to  be 
made ;  and,  with  an  army  of  five  thousand  men,  he 
stood  ready  to  guaranty  her  redemption  from  colonial 
thraldom. 

But  when  peace  was  restored,  and  his  office  was 
accomplished,  his  physical  strength  sunk  under  the 
pestilential  influence  of  the  climate,  and,  fast  yielding 
to  disease,  he  was  borne  in  a  litter  across  the  swamps 
of  Florida  towards  his  home.  It  was  Jackson's  char 
acter  that  he  never  solicited  aid  from  any  one ;  but  he 
never  forgot  those  who  rendered  him  service  in  the 
hour  of  need.  At  a  tune  when  all  around  him  believed 
him  near  his  end,  his  wife  hastened  to  his  side ;  and, 
by  her  tenderness  and  nursing  care,  her  patient  as 
siduity,  and  the  soothing  influence  of  devoted  love, 
withheld  him  from  the  grave. 

He  would  have  remained  quietly  at  his  home, 
but  that  he  was  privately  informed,  his  conduct 
was  to  be  attainted  by  some  intended  congres 
sional  proceedings ;  he  came,  therefore,  into  the  pres 
ence  of  the  people's  representatives  at  Washington, 
only  to  vindicate  his  name ;  and,  when  that  was 
achieved,  he  once  more  returned  to  his  seclusion 
among  the  groves  of  the  Hermitage. 

It  was  not  his  own  ambition  which  brought  nim 
again  to  the  public  view.  The  affection  of  Tennessee 
compelled  him  to  resume  a  seat  on  the  floor  of  the 
American  Senate,  and,  after  a  long  series  of  the  in- 


462  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

tensest  political  strife,  Andrew  Jackson  was  elected 
President  of  the  United  States. 

Far  from  advancing  his  own  pretensions,  he  always 
kept  them  back,  and  had  for  years  repressed  the 
solicitations  of  his  friends  to  become  a  candidate. 
He  felt  sensibly  that  he  was  devoid  of  scientific 
culture,  and  little  familiar  with  letters ;  and  he  never 
obtruded  his  opinions,  or  preferred  claims  to  place. 
But,  whenever  his  advice  was  demanded,  he  was 
always  ready  to  pronounce  it  ;  and  whenever  his 
country  invoked  his  services,  he  did  not  shrink  even 
from  the  station  which  had  been  filled  by  the  most 
cultivated  men  our  nation  had  produced. 

Behold,  then,  the  unlettered  man  of  the  West,  the 
nursling  of  the  wilds,  the  farmer  of  the  Hermitage, 
little  versed  in  books,  unconnected  by  science  with  the 
traditions  of  the  past,  raised  by  the  will  of  the  people  to 
the  highest  pinnacle  of  honor,  to  the  central  post  in  the 
civilization  of  republican  freedom,  to  the  office  where 
all  the  powers  of  the  earth  would  watch  his  actions — 
where  his  words  would  be  repeated  through  the  world, 
and  his  spirit  be  the  moving  star  to  guide  the  nations. 
What  policy  will  he  pursue?  What  wisdom  will  he 
bring  with  him  from  the  forest  ?  What  rules  of  duty 
will  he  evolve  from  the  oracles  of  his  own  mind  ? 

The  man  of  the  West  came  as  the  inspired  prophet 
of  the  West ;  he  came  as  one  free  from  the  bonds  of 
hereditary  or  established  custom ;  he  came  with  no  su- 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.          463 

perior  but  conscience,  no  oracle  but  his  native  judg 
ment  ;  and,  true  to  his  origin  and  his  education,  true 
to  the  conditions  and  circumstances  of  his  advance 
ment,  he  valued  right  more  than  usage ;  he  reverted 
from  the  pressure  of  established  interests  to  the  energy 
of  first  principles. 

We  tread  on  ashes,  where  the  fire  is  not  yet  extin 
guished  ;  yet  not  to  dwell  on  his  career  as  President, 
were  to  leave  out  of  view  the  grandest  illustrations  of 
his  magnanimity. 

The  legislation  of  the  United  States  had  followed 
the  precedents  of  the  legislation  of  European  mon 
archies  ;  it  was  the  office  of  Jackson  to  lift  the  coun 
try  out  of  the  European  forms  of  legislation,  and  to 
open  to  it  a  career  resting  on  American  sentiment  and 
American  freedom.  He  would  have  freedom  every 

where — freedom  under  the  restraints  of  right :  freedom 

% 

of  industry,  of  commerce,  of  mind,  of  universal  action  ; 
freedom,  'unshackled  by  restrictive  privileges,  unre 
strained  by  the  thraldom  of  monopolies. 

The  unity  of  his  mind  and  his  consistency  were  with 
out  a  parallel.  Guided  by  natural  dialectics,  he  devel 
oped  the  political  doctrines  that  suited  every  emergency, 
with  a  precision  and  a  harmony  that  no  theorist  could 
hope  to  equal.  On  every  subject  in  politics,  he  was 
thoroughly  and  profoundly  and  immovably  radical; 
and  would  sit  for  hours,  and  in  a  continued  flow  of 
remark  make  the  application  of  his  principles  to  every 


464  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

question  that  could  arise  in  legislation,  or  in  the  inter 
pretation  of  the  constitution. 

His  expression  of  himself  was  so  clear,  that  his  in 
fluence  pervaded  not  our  land  only,  but  all  America 
and  all  mankind.  They  say  that,  in  the  physical 
world,  the  magnetic  fluid  is  so  diffused,  that  its  vibra 
tions  are  discernible  simultaneously  in  every  part  of  the 
globe.  So  it  is  with  the  element  of  freedom.  And  as 
Jackson  developed  its  doctrines  from  their  source  in  the 
mind  of  humanity,  the  popular  sympathy  was  moved 
and  agitated  throughout  the  world,  till  his  name  grew 
every  where  to  be  the  symbol  of  popular  power. 

Himself  the  witness  of  the  ruthlessness  of  savage 
life,  he  planned  the  removal  of  the  Indian  tribes 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  organized  States ;  and  it  is 
the  result  of  his  determined  policy  that  the  region  east 
of  the  Mississippi  has  been  transferred  to  the  exclusive 
possession  of  cultivated  man. 

A  pupil  of  the  wilderness,  his  heart  was  with  the 
pioneers  of  American  life  towards  the  setting  sun. 
He  longed  to  secure  to  the  emigrant,  not  pre-emp 
tion  rights  only,  but  more  than  pre-emption  rights. 
He  longed  to  invite  labor  to  take  possession  of  the  un 
occupied  fields  without  money  and  without  price ;  with 
no  obligation  except  the  perpetual  devotion  of  itself  by 
allegiance  to  its  country.  Under  the  beneficent  influ 
ence  of  his  opinions,  the  sons  of  misfortune,  the  chil 
dren  of  adventure,  find  their  way  to  the  uncultivated 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.         465 

West.  There  in  some  wilderness  glade,  or  in  the  thick 
forest  of  the  fertile  plain,  or  where  the  prairies  most 
sparkle  with  flowers,  they,  like  the  wild  bee  which  sets 
them  the  example  of  industry,  may  choose  their  home, 
mark  the  extent  of  their  possessions  by  driving  stakes 
or  blazing  trees,  shelter  their  log-cabin  with  boughs 
and  turf,  and  teach  the  virgin  soil  to  yield  itself  to  the 
ploughshare.  Theirs  shall  be  the  soil ;  theirs  the  beau 
tiful  farms  which  they  teach  to  be  productive.  Come, 
children  of  sorrow !  you  on  whom  the  Old  World 
frowns;  crowd  fearlessly  to  the  forests;  plant  your 
homes  in  confidence,  for  the  country  watches  over  you ; 
your  children  grow  around  you  as  hostages,  and  the 
wilderness,  at  your  bidding,  surrenders  its  grandeur  of 
useless  luxuriance  to  the  beauty  and  loveliness  of 
culture.  Yet  beautiful  and  lovely  as  is  this  scene,  it 
still  by  far  falls  short  of  the  ideal  which  lived  in  the 
affections  of  Jackson. 

It  would  be  a  sin  against  the  occasion,  were  I  to 
omit  to  commemorate  the  deep  devotedness  of  Jackson 
to  the  cause  and  to  the  rights  of  the  laboring  classes. 
It  was  for  their  welfare  that  he  defied  all  the 
storms  of  political  hostility.  He  desired  to  ensure  to 
them  the  fruits  of  their  own  industry ;  and  he  unceas 
ingly  opposed  every  system  which  tended  to  lessen 
their  reward,  or  which  exposed  them  to  be  defrauded 
of  their  dues.  They  may  bend  over  his  grave  with 
affectionate  sorrow;  for  never,  in  the  tide  of  time, 
30 


466  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

did  a  statesman  exist  more  heartily  resolved  to  protect 
them  in  their  rights,  and  to  advance  their  happiness. 
For  then-  benefit,  he  opposed  partial  legislation;  for 
their  benefit,  he  resisted  all  artificial  methods  of  con 
trolling  labor,  and  subjecting  it  to  capital.  It  was 
for  their  benefit  that  he  loved  freedom  in  all  its 
forms — freedom  of  the  individual  in  personal  inde 
pendence,  freedom  of  the  States  as  separate  sovereign 
ties.  He  never  would  listen  to  counsels  which  tended 
to  the  concentration  of  power,  the  subjecting  general 
labor  to  a  central  will.  The  true  American  system 
presupposes  the  diffusion  of  freedom — organized  life 
in  all  the  parts  of  the  American  body  politic,  as  there 
is  organized  life  in  every  part  of  the  human  system. 
His  vindication  of  the  just  principles  of  the  constitution 
derived  its  sublimity  from  his  deep  conviction,  that  this 
strict  construction  is  required  by  the  lasting  welfare  of 
the  great  laboring  classes  of  the  United  States. 

To  this  end,  Jackson  revived  the  tribunicial  power 
of  the  veto,  and  exerted  it  against  the  decisive  action 
of  both  branches '  of  Congress,  against  the  votes,  the 
wishes,  the  entreaties  of  personal  and  political  friends. 
"  Show  me,"  was  his  reply  to  them,  "  show  me  an 
express  clause  in  the  constitution,  authorizing  Congress 
to  take  the  business  of  State  legislatures  out  of  their 
hands."  "  You  will  ruin  us  all,"  cried  a  firm  partisan 
friend  ;  "  you  will  ruin  your  party  and  your  own  pros 
pects."  "Providence,"  answered  Jackson,  "will  take 
care  of  me  ; "  and  he  persevered. 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.          467 

In  proceeding  to  discharge  the  debt  of  the  United 
States — a  measure  thoroughly  American — Jackson  fol 
lowed  the  example  of  his  predecessors ;  but  he  followed 
it  with  the  full  consciousness  that  he  was  rescuing  the 
country  from  the  artificial  system  of  finance  which  had 
prevailed  throughout  the  world ;  and  with  him  it 
formed  a  part  of  a  system  by  which  American  legis 
lation  was  to  separate  itself  more  and  more  effectually 
from  European  precedents,  and  develope  itself  more  and 
more,  according  to  the  vital  principles  of  our  political 
existence. 

The  discharge  of  the  debt  brought  with  it  a  great 
reduction  of  the  public  burdens,  and  brought,  of 
necessity,  into  view,  the  question,  how  far  America 
should  follow,  of  choice,  the  old  restrictive  policy  of 
high  duties,  under  which  Europe  had  oppressed  Ameri 
ca;  or  how  far  she  should  rely  on  her  own  freedom, 
enterprise,  and  power,  defying  the  competition,  seeking 
the  markets,  and  receiving  the  products  of  the  world. 

The  mind  of  Jackson  on  this  subject  reasoned 
clearly,  and  without  passion.  In  the  abuses  of  the 
system  of  revenue  by  excessive  imposts,  he  saw  evils 
which  the  public  mind  would  remedy ;  and,  inclining 
with  the  whole  might  of  his  energetic  nature  to  the 
side  of  revenue  duties,  he  made  his  earnest  but  tranquil 
appeal  to  the  judgment  of  the  people. 

The  portions  of  country  that  suffered  most  severely 
from  a  course  of  legislation,  which,  in  its  extreme  char- 


468  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

acter  as  it  then  existed,  is  now  universally  acknow 
ledged  to  have  been  unequal  and  unjust,  were  less 
tranquil ;  and  rallying  on  those  doctrines  of  freedom, 
which  make  our  government  a  limited  one,  they  saw 
in  the  oppressive  acts  an  assumption  of  power  which 
of  itself  was  nugatory,  because  it  was  exercised,  as 
they  held,  without  authority  from  the  people. 

The  contest  that  ensued  was  the  most  momentous 
in  our'  annals.  The  greatest  minds  of  America  en 
gaged  in  the  discussion.  Eloquence  never  achieved 
sublimer  triumphs  in  the  American  Senate  than  on 
those  occasions.  The  country  became  deeply  divided ; 
and  the  antagonist  elements  were  arrayed  against  each 
other  under  forms  of  clashing  authority  menacing  civil 
4 war;  the  freedom  of  the  several  States  was  invoked 
against  the  power  of  the  United  States ;  and  under  the 
organization  of  a  State  in  convention,  the  reserved 
rights  of  the  people  were  summoned  to  display  their 
energy,  and  balance  the  authority  and  neutralize  the 
legislation  of  the  central  government.  The  States 
were  agitated  with  prolonged  excitement ;  the  friends 
of  liberty  throughout  the  world  looked  on  with  divided 
sympathies,  praying  that  the  American  Union  might 
be  perpetual,  and  also  that  the  commerce  of  the  world 
might  be  free. 

Fortunately  for  the  country,  and  fortunately  for 
mankind,  Andrew  Jackson  was  at  the  helm  of  state, 
the  representative  of  the  principles  that  were  to  allay 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW   JACKSON.          469 

the  storm,  and  to  restore  the  hopes  of  peace  and  free 
dom.  By  nature,  by  impulse,  by  education,  by  con 
viction,  a  friend  to  personal  freedom — by  education, 
political  sympathies,  and  the  fixed  habit  of  his  mind,  a 
friend  to  the  rights  of  the  States — unwilling  that  the 
liberty  of  the  States  should  be  trampled  underfoot — 
unwilling  that  the  government  should  lose  its  vigor  or 
be  impaired,  he  rallied  for  the  constitution ;  and  in  its 
name  he  published  to  the  world,  "  THE  UNION  :  IT 
MUST  BE  PRESERVED."  The  words  were  a  spell  to 
hush  evil  passion,  and  to  remove  oppression.  Under 
his  effective  guidance,  the  favored  interests,  which  had 
struggled  to  perpetuate  unjust  legislation,  yielded  to 
the  voice  of  moderation  and  reform ;  and  every  mind 
that  had  for  a  moment  contemplated  a  rupture  of  the 
States,  discarded  it  for  ever.  The  whole  influence  of 
the  past  was  invoked  in  favor  of  the  federal  system ; 
from  the  council  chambers  of  the  fathers,  who  moulded 
our  institutions — -from  the  hall  where  American  inde 
pendence  was  declared,  the  clear,  loud  cry  was  uttered — 
"  the  Union :  it  must  be  preserved."  Prom  every 
battle  field  of  the  revolution — from  Lexington  and  Bun 
ker  Hill — from  Saratoga  and  Yorktown — from  the  fields 
of  Eutaw  and  King's  Mountain — from  the  cane-brakes 
that  sheltered  the  men  of  Marion — the  repeated,  long- 
prolonged  echoes  came  up — "  the  Union :  it  must  be  pre 
served."  From  every  valley  in  our  land — from  every 
cabin  on  the  pleasant  mountain  sides. — from  the  ships  at 


470  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

our  wharves — from  the  tents  of  the  hunter  in  our  west 
ernmost  prairies — from  the  living  minds  of  the  living 
millions  of  American  freemen — from  the  thickly  coming 
glories  of  futurity — the  shout  went  up,  like  the  sound 
of  many  waters,  ""the  Union:  it  must  be  preserved." 
The  friends  of  the  protective  system,  and  they  who 
had  denounced  the  protective  system — the  statesmen 
of  the  North,  that  had  wounded  the  constitution  in 
their  love  of  increased  power  at  the  centre — the  states 
men  of  the  South,  whose  ingenious  acuteness  had  carried 
to  its  extreme  the  theory  of  State  rights — all  conspired 
together ;  all  breathed  prayers  for  the  perpetuity  of  the 
Union.  Under  the  prudent  firmness  of  Jackson,  by 
the  mixture  of  justice  and  general  regard  for  all 
interests,  the  greatest  danger  to  our  country  was  turned 
aside,  .and  mankind  was  encouraged  to  believe  that  our 
Union,  like  our  freedom,  is  imperishable. 

The  moral  of  the  great  events  of  those  days  is  this  : 
that  the  people  can  discern  right,  and  will  make  their 
way  to  a  knowledge  of  right ;  that  the  whole  human 
mind,  and  therefore  with  it  the  mind  of  the  nation, 
has  a  continuous,  ever  improving  existence ;  that  the 
appeal  from  the  unjust  legislation  of  to-day  must  be 
made  quietly,  earnestly,  perseveringly,  to  the  more  en 
lightened  collective  reason  of  to-morrow  ;  that  submis 
sion  is  due  to  the  popular  will,  in  the  confidence  that 
the  people,  when  in  error,  will  amend  their  doings ; 
that  in  a  popular  government  injustice  is  neither  to  be 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.         471 

established  by  force,  nor  to  be  resisted  by  force ;  in  a 
word,  that  the  Union,  which  was  constituted  by  con 
sent,  must  be  preserved  by  love. 

It  rarely  falls  to  the  happy  lot  of  a  statesman  to 
receive  such  unanimous  applause  from  the  heart  of  a 
nation.  Duty  to  the  dead  demands  that,  on  this  occa 
sion,  the  course  of  measures  should  not  pass  unnoticed, 
in  the  progress  of  which,  his  vigor  of  character  most 
clearly  appeared,  and  his  conflict  with  opposing  parties 
was  most  violent  and  protracted. 

From  his  home  in  Tennessee,  Jackson  came  to  the 
presidency,  resolved  to  lift  American  legislation  out  of 
the  forms  of  English  legislation,  and  to  place  our  laws 
on  the  currency  in  harmony  with  the  principles  of  our 
republic.  He  came  to  the  presidency  of  the  United 
States  determined  to  deliver  the  government  from  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  to  restore  the  regu 
lation  of  exchanges  to  the  rightful  depository  of  that 
power — the  commerce  of  the  country.  He  had  de 
signed  to  declare  his  views  on  this  subject  in  his 
inaugural  address,  but  was  persuaded  to  relinquish 
that  purpose,  on  the  ground  that  it  belonged  rather  to 
a  legislative  message.  When  the  period  for  addressing 
Congress  drew  near,  it  was  still  urged,  that  to  attack 
the  bank  would  forfeit  his  popularity  and  secure  his 
future  defeat.  "It  is  not,"  he  answered,  "it  is  not 
for  myself  that  I  care."  It  was  urged  that  haste  was 
unnecessary,  as  the  bank  had  still  six  unexpended 


472  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

years  of  chartered  existence.  "  I  may  die,"  lie  replied, 
"  before  another  Congress  comes  together,  and  I  could 
not  rest  quietly  in  my  grave,  if  I  failed  to  do  what  I 
hold  so  essential  to  the  liberty  of  my  country."  And 
his  first  annual  message  announced  to  the  people 
that  the  bank  was  neither  constitutional  nor  expedient. 
In  this  he  was  in  advance  of  the  friends  about  him,  in 
advance  of  Congress,  and  in  advance  of  his  party. 
This  is  no  time  for  the  analysis  of  measures  or  the 
discussion  of  questions  of  political  economy ;  on  the 
present  occasion,  we  have  to  contemplate  the  character 
of  the  man. 

Never,  from  the  first  moment  of  his  administration 
to  the  last,  was  there  a  calm  in  the  strife  of  parties  on 
the  subject  of  the  currency ;  and  never,  during  the 
whole  period,  did  he  recede  or  falter.  Remaining 
always  in  advance  of  his  party,  always  having  near 
him  friends  who  cowered  before  the  hardihood  of 
his  courage,  he  himself  was  unmoved,  from  the  first 
suggestion  of  the  unconstitutionally  of  the  bank, 
to  the  moment  when  first  of  all,  reasoning  from  the 
certain  tendency  of  its  policy,  he  with  singular  sagacity 
predicted  to  unbelieving  friends  the  coming  insolvenc} 
of  the  institution. 

The  storm  throughout  the  country  rose  with  unex 
ampled  vehemence ;  his  opponents  were  not  satisfied 
with  addressing  the  public,  or  Congress,  or  his  cabinet ; 
they  threw  their  whole  force  personally  on  him.  From 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.         473 

all  parts  men  pressed  around  him,  urging  him,  entreat 
ing  him  to  bend.  Congress  was  flexible ;  many  of  his 
personal  friends  faltered ;  the  impetuous  swelling  wave 
rolled  on,  without  one  sufficient  obstacle,  till  it  reached 
his  presence ;  but,  as  it  dashed  in  its  highest  fury  at 
his  feet,  it  broke  before  his  firmness.  The  command 
ing  majesty  of  his  will  appalled  his  opponents  and 
revived  his  friends.  He,  himself,  had  a  proud  con 
sciousness  that  his  will  was  indomitable.  Standing 
over  the  Rip  Raps,  and  looking  out  upon  the 
ocean,  "Providence,"  said  he  to  a  friend,  "Provi 
dence  may  change  my  determination ;  but  man  no 
more  can  do  it  than  he  can  remove  these  Rip  Raps, 
which  have  resisted  the  rolling  of  the  ocean  from  the 
beginning  of  time."  And  though  a  panic  was  spread 
ing  through  the  land,  and  the  whole  credit  system  as  it 
then  existed  was  crumbling  to  pieces  and  crashing 
around  him,  he  stood  erect,  like  a  massive  column, 
which  the  heaps  of  falling  ruins  could  not  break,  nor 
bend,  nor  sway  from  its  fixed  foundation. 

In  the  relations  of  this  country  to  the  world,  Jack 
son  demanded  for  America  equality.  The  time  was 
come  for  her  to  take  her  place  over  against  the  most 
ancient  and  most  powerful  states  of  the  Old  World, 
and  to  gain  the  recognition  of  her  pretensions.  He 
revived  the  unadjusted  claims  for  injuries  to  our  com 
merce,  committed  in  the  wantonness  of  European  hos 
tilities  ;  and  he  taught  the  American  merchant  and 


474  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

the  American  sailor  to  repose  confidingly  under  the 
sanctity  of  the  American  flag.  Nor  would  he  con 
sent  that  the  payment  of  indemnities  which  were 
due,  should  be  withheld  or  delayed.  Even  against 
France,  the  veteran  of  the  West  enforced  the  just 
demand  of  America,  with  a  heroic  vigor  which 
produced  an  abiding  impression  on  the  world.  He 
did  this  in  the  love  of  peace.  "You  have  set  your 
name  to  the  most  important  document  of  your  public 
life,"  said  one  of  his  cabinet  to  him,  as  he  signed  the 
annual  message  that  treated  of  the  unpaid  indemnity. 
"  This  paper  may  produce  a  war." — "  There  will  be  no 
war,"  answered  Jackson,  decisively ;  and  rising  on  his 
feet,  as  was  his  custom  when  he  spoke  warmly,  he  ex 
pressed  with  solemnity  his  hatred  of  war,  bearing 
witness  to  its  horrors,  and  protesting  against  its 
crimes.  He  loved  peace ;  and  to  secure  permanent 
tranquillity,  he  made  the  rule  for  his  successors,  as 
well  as  for  himself,  in  the  intercourse  of  America  with 
foreign  powers,  "  to  demand  nothing  but  what  is  right, 
and  to  submit  to  nothing  that  is  wrong." 

People  of  the  District  of  Columbia :  I  should  fail 
of  a  duty  on  this  occasion,  if  I  did  not  give  utterance 
to  your  sentiment  of  gratitude  which  followed  General 
Jackson  into  retirement.  This  beautiful  city,  sur 
rounded  by  heights  the  most  attractive,  watered  by  a 
river  so  magnificent,  the  home  of  the  gentle  and  the  cul 
tivated,  not  less  than  the  seat  of  political  power — this 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW   JACKSON.          475 

city,  whose  site  Washington  had  selected,  was  dear  to 
his  affections ;  and  if  he  won  your  grateful  attachment 
by  adorning  it  with  monuments  of  useful  architecture, 
by  establishing  its  credit,  and  relieving  it  of  its  burdens, 
he  regretted  only  that  he  had  not  the  opportunity  to 
have  connected  himself  still  more  intimately  with  your 
prosperity.  When  he  took  leave  of  the  District,  the 
population  of  this  city,  and  the  masses  from  its  vi 
cinity,  followed  his  carriage  in  crowds.  All  in  silence 
stood  near  him,  to  wish  him  adieu ;  and  as  the  cars 
started,  and  lifting  his  hat  in  token  of  farewell,  he 
displayed  his  gray  hairs,  you  stood  around  with  heads 
uncovered,  too  full  of  emotion  to  speak,  in  solemn 
silence  gazing  on  him  as  he  went  on  his  way  to  be 
seen  of  you  no  more. 

Behold  the  warrior  and  statesman,  his  work  well 
done,  retired  to  the  Hermitage,  to  hold  converse  with 
his  forests,  to  cultivate  his  farm,  to  gather  around  him 
hospitably  his  friends !  Who  was  like  HIM  ?  He  was 
the  load-star  of  the  American  people.  His  fervid 
thoughts,  frankly  uttered,  still  spread  the  flame  of 
patriotism  through  the  American  breast ;  his  counsels 
were  still  listened  to  with  reverence ;  and,  almost  alone 
among  statesmen,  he  in  his  retirement  was  in  harmony 
with  every  onward  movement  of  his  time.  His  pre 
vailing  influence  assisted  to  sway  a  neighboring  nation 
to  desire  to  share  our  institutions ;  his  ear  heard  the 
footsteps  of  the  coming  millions  that  are  to  gladden 


476  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

our  western  shores ;  and  his  eye  discerned  in  the  dim 
distance  the  whitening  sails  that  are  to  enliven  the 
Pacific  with  the  social  sounds  of  our  commerce. 

Age  had  whitened  his  locks,  and  dimmed  his  eye, 
and  spread  round  him  the  infirmities  and  venerable 
emblems  of  many  years  of  toilsome  service ;  but  his 
heart  beat  warmly  as  in  his  youth,  and  his  courage 
was  firm  as  it  had  ever  been  in  the  day  of  battle. 
His  affections  were  still  for  his  friends  and  his  coun 
try,  his  thoughts  were  already  in  a  better  world.  He 
who  in  active  life  had  always  had  unity  of  perception 
and  will,  in  action  had  never  faltered  from  doubt,  and 
in  council  had  always  reverted  to  first  principles  and 
general  laws,  now  gave  himself  to  communing  with 
the  Infinite.  He  was  a  believer;  from  feeling,  from 
experience,  from  conviction.  Not  a  shadow  of  skepti 
cism  ever  dimmed  the  lustre  of  his  mind.  Proud 
philosopher !  will  you  smile  to  know  that  Andrew 
Jackson  perused  reverently  his  Psalter  and  Prayer- 
book  and  Bible?  Know  that  he  had  faith  in  the 
eternity  of  truth,  in  the  imperishable  power  of  freedom, 
in  the  destinies  of  humanity,  in  the  virtues  and  ca 
pacity  of  the  people,  in  his  country's  institutions,  in 
the  being  and  overruling  providence  of  a  merciful  and 
ever-living  God. 

The  last  moment  of  his  life  on  earth  is  at  hand. 
It  is  the  Sabbath  of  the  Lord;  the  brightness  and 
beauty  of  summer  clothe  the  fields  around  him;  na 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW   JACKSON.         477 

ture  is  in  her  glory;  but  the  sublimest  spectacle  on 
that  day,  was  the  victory  of  his  unblenching  spirit  over 
death  itself. 

When  he  first  felt  the  hand  of  death  upon  him, 
"  May  my  enemies,"  he  cried,  "  find  peace ;  may  the 
liberties  of  my  country  endure  for  ever." 

When  his  exhausted  system,  under  the  excess  of 
pain,  sunk,  for  a  moment,  from  debility,  "Do  not 
weep,"  said  he  to  his  adopted  daughter ;  "  my  suffer 
ings  are  less  than  those  of  Christ  upon  the  cross ;  "  for 
he,  too,  as  a  disciple  of  the  cross,  could  have  devoted 
himself,  in  sorrow,  for  mankind.  Peeling  his  end 
near,  he  would  see  all  his  family  once  more ;  and  he 
spoke  to  them,  one  by  one,  in  words  of  tenderness  and 
affection.  His  two  little  grandchildren  were  absent  at 
Sunday-school.  He  asked  for  them;  and  as  they 
came,  he  prayed  for  them,  and  kissed  them,  and 
blessed  them.  His  servants  were  then  summoned; 
they  gathered,  some  in  his  room,  and  some  on  the  out 
side  of  the  house,  clinging  to  the  .windows,  that  they 
might  gaze  and  hear.  And  that  dying  man,  thus 

O  t/         O 

surrounded,  in  a  gush  of  fervid  eloquence,  spoke  with 
inspiration  of  God,  of  the  Redeemer,  of  salvation 
through  the  atonement,  of  immortality,  of  heaven. 
For  he  ever  thought  that  pure  and  undefiled  religion 
was  the  foundation  of  private  happiness,  and  the  bul 
wark  of  republican  institutions.  "Dear  children," 
such  were  his  final  words,  "dear  children,  servants, 


478  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

and  friends,  I  trust  to  meet  you  all  in  heaven,  both 
white  and  black — all,  both  white  and  black."  And 
having  borne  his  testimony  to  immortality,  he  bowed 
his  mighty  head,  and,  without  a  groan,  the  spirit  of  the 
greatest  man  of  his  age  escaped  to  the  bosom  of 
his  God. 

In  life,  his  career  had  been  like  the  blaze  of  the 
sun  in  the  fierceness  of  its  noonday  glory ;  his  death 
was  lovely  as  the  summer's  evening,  when  the  sun  goes 
down  in  tranquil  beauty  without  a  cloud.  To  the 
majestic  energy  of  an  indomitable  will,  he  joined  a 
heart  capable  of  the  purest  and  most  devoted  love, 
rich  in  the  tenderest  affections.  On  the  bloody  battle 
field  of  Tohopeca,  he  saved  an  infant  that  clung  to 
the  breast  of  its  dying  mother;  in  the  stormiest 
season  of  his  presidency,  he  paused  at  the  imminent 
moment  of  decision,  to  counsel  a  poor  suppliant 
that  had  come  up  to  him  for  relief.  Of  the  strifes 
in  which  he  was  engaged  in  his  earlier  life,  not 
one  sprung  from  himself,  but  in  every  case  he 
became  involved  by  standing  forth  as  the  champi 
on  of  the  weak,  the  poor,  and  the  defenceless,  to 
shelter  the  gentle  against  oppression,  to  protect  the 
emigrant  against  the  avarice  of  the  speculator.  His 
generous  soul  revolted  at  the  barbarous  practice  of 
duels,  and  by  no  man  in  the  land  have  so  many  been 
prevented. 

The  sorrows  of  those  that  were  near  to  him  went 


COMMEMORATION    OF    ANDREW    JACKSON.          479 

deeply  into  his  soul ;  and  at  the  anguish  of  the  wife 
whom  he  loved,  the  orphans  whom  he  adopted,  he 
would  melt  into  tears,  and  weep  and  sob  like  a  child. 
No  man  in  private  life  so  possessed  the  hearts  of  all 
around  him ;  no  public  man  of  this  century  ever  re 
turned  to  private  life  with  such  an  abiding  mastery 
over  the  affections  of  the  people.  No  man  with  truer 
.instinct  received  American  ideas ;  no  man  expressed 
them  so  completely,  or  so  boldly,  or  s6  sincerely.  He 
was  as  sincere  a  man  as  ever  lived.  He  was  wholly, 
always,  and  altogether  sincere  and  true. 

Up  to  the  last,  he  dared  do  any  thing  that  it  was 
right  to  do.  He  united  personal  courage  and  moral 
courage  beyond  any  man  of  whom  history  keeps  the 
record.  Before  the  nation,  before  the  world,  before 
coming  ages,  he  stands  forth  the  representative,  for  his 
generation,  of  the  American  mind.  And  the  secret  of 
his  greatness  is  this :  by  intuitive  conception,  he  shared 
and  possessed  all  the  creative  ideas  of  his  country 
and  his  time ;  he  expressed  them  with  dauntless  in 
trepidity  ;  he  enforced  them  with  an  immovable 
will;  he  executed  them  with  an  electric  power  that 
attracted  and  swayed  the  American  people.  The 
nation,  in  his  time,  had  not  one  great  thought,  of 
which  he  was  not  the  boldest  and  clearest  expositor. 

Not  clanger,  not  an  army  in  battle  array,  not 
wounds,  not  wide-spread  clamor,  not  age,  not  the 
anguish  of  disease,  could  impair  in  the  least  degree 


480  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

the  vigor  of  his  steadfast  mind.  The  heroes  of  an 
tiquity  would  have  contemplated  with  awe  the  un 
matched  hardihood  of  his  character ;  and  Napo 
leon,  had  he  possessed  his  disinterested  will,  could 
never  have  been  vanquished.  Jackson  never  was  van 
quished.  He  was  always  fortunate.  He  conquered 
the  wilderness ;  he  conquered  the  savage ;  he  con 
quered  the  bravest  veterans  trained  in  the  battle  fields 
of  Europe ;  he  conquered  every  where  in  statesman 
ship  ;  and,  when  death  came  to  get  the  mastery  over 
him,  he  turned  that  last  enemy  aside  as  tranquilly  as 
he  had  done  the  feeblest  of  his  adversaries,  and  passed 
from  earth  in  the  triumphant  consciousness  of  im 
mortality. 

His  body  has  its  fit  resting-place  in  the  great 
central  valley  of  the  Mississippi ;  his  spirit  rests  upon 
our  whole  territory ;  it  hovers  over  the  vales  of  Oregon, 
and  guards,  in  advance,  the  frontier  of  the  Del  Norte. 
The  fires  of  party  strife  are  quenched  at  his  grave. 
His  faults  and  frailties  have  perished.  Whatever  of 
good  he  has  done,  lives,  and  will  live  for  ever. 


ORATION, 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  NEW   YORK   HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,   AT  ITS 
SEMI-CENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION,  NOVEMBER  20,  1854. 

BROTHERS,  GUESTS,  AND  FRIENDS  OP  THE  NEW  YORK 
HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  : 

WE  are  assembled  to  celebrate  the  completion  of  a 
half  century,  unequalled  in  its  discoveries  and  its  deeds. 
Man  is  but  the  creature  of  yesterday,  and  fifty  years 
form  a  great  length  in  the  chain  of  his  entire  existence. 
Inferior  objects  attract  the  inquirer  who  would  go  back 
to  remotest  antiquity.  The  student  of  the  chronology 
of  the  earth  may  sit  on  the  bluffs  that  overhang  the 
Mississippi,  and  muse  on  the  myriads  of  years  during 
which  the  powers  of  nature  have  been  depositing  the 
materials  of  its  delta.  He  may  then,  by  the  aid  of  in 
duction,  draw  nearer  to  the  beginnings  of  time,  as  he 
meditates  on  the  succession  of  ages  that  assisted  to 
construct  the  cliffs  which  raise  their  bastions  over  the 
stream ;  or  to  bury  in  compact  layers  the  fern-like 
forests  that  have  stored  the  bosom  of  the  great  valley 
with  coal ;  or  to  crystallize  the  ancient  limestone  into 
31 


482  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

marble ;  or,  at  a  still  earlier  epoch,  to  compress  liquid 
masses  of  the  globe  into  seams  of  granite.  But  the 
records  of  these  transitions  gain  their  chief  interest 
from  their  illustrating  the  revolutions  through  which 
our  planet  was  fashioned  into  a  residence  for  man. 
Science  may  roam  into  the  abysses  of  the  past,  when 
the  earth  moved  silently  in  its  course  without  ob 
servers  ;  just  as  it  may  reach  those  far-off  regions  of 
nebular  fields  of  light,  whose  distance  no  numbers  that 
the  human  faculties  may  grasp  can  intelligibly  express. 
But  as  the  sublime  dwells  not  in  space,  so  it  dwells  not 
in  duration.  To  search  for  it  aright,  we  must  contem 
plate  the  higher  subject  of  man.  It  is  but  a  few  cen 
turies  since  he  came  into  life  ;  and  yet  the  study  of  his 
nature  and  his  destiny  surpasses  all  else  that  can  en 
gage  his  thoughts.  At  the  close  of  a  period  which  has 
given  new  proof  that  unceasing  movement  is  the  law 
of  whatever  is  finite,  we  are  called  upon  to  observe  the 
general  character  of  the  changes  in  his  state.  Our 
minds  irresistibly  turn  to  consider  the  laws,  the  cir 
cumstances  and  the  prospects  of  his  career ;  we  are  led 
to  inquire  whether  his  faculties  and  his  relations  to  the 
universe  compel  him  to  a  steady  course  of  improve 
ment  ;  whether,  in  the  aggregate,  he  has  actually  made 
advances ;  and  what  hopes  we  may  cheiish  respecting 
his  future.  The  occasion  invites  me  to  speak  to  you 
of  the  NECESSITY,  the  REALITY,  and  the  PROMISE  of  the 
progress  of  mankind. 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  483 

Since  every  thing  that  is  limited  suffers  perpetual 
alteration,  the  condition  of  our  race  is  one  of  growth 
or  of  decay.  It  is  the  glory  of  man  that  he  is  conscious 
of  this  law  of  his  existence.  He  alone  is  gifted  with 
reason  which  looks  upward  as  well  as  before  and  after, 
and  connects  him  with  the  world  that  is  not  discerned 
by  the  senses.  He  alone  has  the  faculty  so  to  combine 
thought  with  affection,  that  he  can  lift  up  his  heart 
and  feel  not  for  himself  only,  but  for  his  brethren  and 
his  kind.  Every  man  is  in  substance  equal  to  his 
fellow-man.  His  nature  is  changed  neither  by  time 
nor  by  country.  He  bears  no  marks  of  having  risen 
to  his  present  degree  of  perfection  by  successive  trans 
mutations  from  inferior  forms ;  but  by  the  peculiarity 
and  superiority  of  his  powers  he  shows  himself  to  have 
been  created  separate  and  distinct  from  all  other  classes 
of  animal  life.  He  is  neither  degenerating  into  such 
differences  as  could  in  the  end  no  longer  be  classified 
together,  nor  rising  into  a  higher  species.  Each  mem 
ber  of  the  race  is  in  will,  affection,  and  intellect,  con- 
substantial  with  every  other ;  no  passion,  no  noble  or 
degrading  affection,  no  generous  or  selfish  impulse,  has 
ever  appeared,  of  which  the  germ  does  not  exist  in 
every  breast.  No  science  has  been  reached,  no  thought 
generated,  no  truth  discovered,  which  has  not  from  all 
time  existed  potentially  in  every  human  mind.  The 
belief  in  the  progress  of  the  race  does  not,  therefore, 
spring  from  the  supposed  possibility  of  his  .  acquiring 


484  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

new  faculties,  or  coining  into  the  possession  of  a  new 
nature. 

Still  less  does  truth  vary.  They  speak  falsely  who 
say  that  truth  is  the  daughter  of  time ;  it  is  the  child 
of  eternity,  and  as  old  as  the  Divine  mind.  The  per 
ception  of  it  takes  place  in  the  order  of  time ;  truth 
itself  knows  nothing  of  the  succession  of  ages.  Neither 
does  morality  need  to  perfect  itself ;  it  is  what  it 
always  has  been,  and  always  will  be.  Its  distinctions 
are  older  than  the  sea  or  the  dry  land,  than  the  earth  or 
the  sun.  The  relation  of  good  to  evil  is  from  the 
beginning,  and  is  unalterable. 

The  progress  of  man  consists  in  this,  that  he 
himself  arrives  at  the  perception  of  truth.  The  Divine 
mind,  which  is  its  source,  left  it  to  be  discovered, 
appropriated  and  developed  by  finite  creatures. 

The  life  of  an  individual  is  but  a  breath ;  it  comes 
forth  like  a  flower,  and  flees  like  a  shadow.  Were  no 
other  progress,  therefore,  possible  than  that  of  the  in 
dividual,  one  period  would  have  little  advantage  over 
another.  But  as  every  man  partakes  of  the  same 
faculties  and  is  consubstantial  with  all,  it  follows  that 
the  race  also  has  an  existence  of  its  own;  and  this 
existence  becomes  richer,  more  varied,  free  and  com 
plete,  as  time  advances.  COMMON  SENSE  implies  by  its 
very  name,  that  each  individual  is  to  contribute  some 
share  toward  the  general  intelligence.  The  many  are 
wiser  than  the  few;  the  multitude  than  the  philos- 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  485 

oplier ;  the  race  than  the  individual ;  and  each  suc 
cessive  generation  than  its  predecessor. 

The  social  condition  of  a  century,  its  faith  and  its 
institutions,  are  always  analogous  to  its  acquisitions. 
Neither  philosophy,  nor  government,  nor  political  insti 
tutions,  nor  religious  knowledge,  can   remain   much 
behind,  or  go  much  in  advance,  of  the  totality  of  con 
temporary   intelligence.      The    age   furnishes   to   the 
master- workman  the  materials  with  which  he  builds. 
The  outbreak  of  a  revolution  is  the  pulsation  of  the 
time,  healthful  or  spasmodic,  according  to  its  harmony 
with  the  civilization  from  which  it  springs.     Each  new 
philosophical  system  is  the  heliograph  of  an  evanescent 
condition  of  public  thought.     The  state  in  which  we 
are,  is  man's  natural  state  at  this  moment;   but  it 
neither  should  be  nor  can  be  his  permanent  state,  for 
his  existence  is  flowing  on  in   eternal  motion,  with 
nothing  fixed  but  the  certainty  of  change.     Now,  by 
the  necessity  of  the  case,  the  movement  of  the  human 
mind,  taken  collectively,  is  always  toward  something 
better.     There  exists  in  each  individual,  alongside  of 
his  own  personality,  the  ideal  man  who  represents  the 
race.     Every  one  bears  about  within  himself  the  con 
sciousness  that  his  course  is   a   struggle ;   and  per 
petually  feels   the  contrast  between  his  own  limited 
nature  and  the  better  life  of  which  he  conceives.     He 
cannot  state  a  proposition  respecting  a  finite  object, 
but  it  includes  also  a  reference  to  the  infinite.     He 


486  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

cannot  form  a  judgment,  but  it  combines  ideal  truth 
and  partial  error,  and,  as  a  consequence,  sets  in  action 
the  antagonism  between  the  true  and  the  perfect  on 
the  one  side,  and  the  false  and  the  imperfect  on  the 
other;  and  in  this  contest  the  true  and  the  perfect 
must  prevail,  for  they  have  the  advantage  of  being 
perennial. 

In  public  life,  by  the  side  of  the  actual  state  of  the 
world,  there  exists  the  ideal  state  toward  which   it 
should  tend.     This  antagonism  lies  at  the  root  of  all 
political  combinations  that  ever  have  been  or  ever  can 
be  formed.     The  elements  on  which  they  rest,  whether 
in  monarchies,  aristocracies,  or  in  republics,  are  but 
three,  not  one  of  which  can  be  wanting,  or  society  falls 
to  ruin.     The  course  of  human  destiny  is  ever  a  rope 
of  three  strands.    One  party  may  found  itself  on  things 
as  they  are,  and  strive  for  their  unaltered  perpetuity ; 
this  is  conservatism,  always  appearing  wherever  estab 
lished  interests  exist,  and  never  capable  of  unmingled 
success,  because  finite  things  are  ceaselessly  in  motion. 
Another  may  be  based  on   theoretic  principles,  and 
struggle  unrelentingly  to  conform  society  to  the  abso 
lute  law  of  Truth  and  Justice ;   and  this,  though  it 
kindle  the  purest  enthusiasm,  can  likewise  never  per 
fectly  succeed,  because  the  materials  of  which  society  is 
composed  partake  of  imperfection,  and  to  extirpate  all 
that  is  imperfect  would  lead  to  the  destruction  of 
society   itself.      And  there  may  be   a  third,   which 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  487 

seeks  to  reconcile  the  two,  but  which  yet  can  never 
thrive  by  itself,  since  it  depends  for  its  activity  on 
the  clashing  between  the  fact  and  the  higher  law. 
Without  all  the  three,  the  fates  could  not  spin  their 
thread.  As  the  motions  of  the  solar  world  require  the 
centripetal  force,  which,  by  itself  alone,  would  con 
solidate  ah1  things  in  one  massive  confusion ;  the  centri 
fugal  force,  which,  if  uncontrolled,  would  hurl  the 
planets  on  a  tangent  into  infinite  space ;  and  lastly, 
that  reconciling  adjustment,  which  preserves  the  two 
powers  in  harmony ;  so  society  always  has  within  itself 
the  elements  of  conservatism,  of  absolute  right,  and 
of  reform. 

The  present  state  of  the  world  is  accepted  by  the 
wise  and  benevolent  as  the  necessary  and  natural  result 
of  ah1  its  antecedents.  But  the  statesman,  whose  heart 
has  been  purified  by  the  love  of  his  kind,  and  whose 
purpose  solemnized  by  faith  in  the  immutability  of 
justice,  seeks  to  apply  eveiy  principle  which  former 
ages  or  his  own  may  have  mastered,  and  to  make 
every  advancement  that  the  culture  of  his  time  will 
sustain.  In  a  word,  he  will  never  omit  an  opportunity 
to  lift  his  country  out  of  the  inferior  sphere  of  its 
actual  condition  into  the  higher  and  better  sphere 
that  is  nearer  to  ideal  perfection. 

The  merits  of  great  men  are  to  be  tested  by  this 
criterion.  I  speak  of  the  judgment  of  the  race,  not 
of  the  opinion  of  classes.  The  latter  exalt,  and  even 


488  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

deify  the  advocates  of  their  selfishness ;  and  often  pro 
portion  their  praise  to  the  daring,  with  which  right  and 
truth  have  been  made  to  succumb  to  their  interests. 
They  lavish  laurels  all  the  more  profusely  to  hide  the 
baldness  of  then*  heroes.  But  reputation  so  imparted 
is  like  every  thing  else  that  rests  only  on  the  finite. 
Vain  is  the  applause  of  factions,  or  the  suffrages  of 
those  whose  fortunes  are  benefited ;  fame  so  attained, 
must  pass  away  like  the  interests  of  classes ;  but  the 
name  of  those  who  have  studied  the  well-being  of  their 
fellow-men,  and  in  their  generation  have  assisted  to 
raise  the  world  from  the  actual  toward  the  ideal,  is 
repeated  in  all  the  temples  of  humanity,  and  lives  not 
only  in  its  intelligence,  but  in  its  heart.  These  are 
they,  whose  glory  calumny  cannot  tarnish,  nor  pride 
beat  down.  Connecting  themselves  with  *  man's  ad 
vancement,  their  example  never  loses,  its  lustre ;  and 
the  echo  of  their  footsteps  is  heard  throughout  all  time 
with  sympathy  and  love. 

The  necessity  of  the  progress  of  the  race  follows, 
therefore,  from  the  fact,  that  the  great  Author  of  all 
life  has  left  truth  in  its  immutability  to  be  observed, 
and  has  endowed  man  with  the  power  of  observation 
and  generalization.  Precisely  the  same  conclusions 
will  appear,  if  we  contemplate  society  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  unity  of  the  universe.  The  unchanging 
character  of  law  is  the  only  basis  on  which  continuous 
action  can  rest.  Without  it  man  would  be  but  as  the 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  489 

traveller  over  endless  morasses ;  the  builder  on  quick 
sands  ;  the  mariner  without  compass  or  rudder,  driven 
successively  whithersoever  changing  winds  may  blow. 
The  universe  is  the  reflex  and  image  of  its  Creator. 
"  The  true  work  of  art,"  says  Michael  Angelo,  "  is  but 
a  shadow  of  the  Divine  perfections."  We  may  say  in 
a  more  general  manner,  that  BEAUTY  ITSELF  is  BUT  THE 

SENSIBLE  IMAGE  OF  THE  INFINITE  ;    that    all    Creation   is 

a  manifestation  of  the  Almighty ;  not  the  result  of 
caprice,  but  the  glorious  display  of  his  perfection ;  and 
as  the  universe  thus  produced,  is  always  in  the  course 
of  change,  so  its  regulating  mind  is  a  living  Providence, 
perpetually  exerting  itself  anew.  If  his  designs  could 
be  thwarted,  we  should  lose  the  great  evidence  of  his 
unity,  as  well  as  the  anchor  of  our  own  hope. 

Harmony  is  the  characteristic  of  the  intellectual 
system  of  the  universe ;  and  immutable  laws  of  moral 
existence  must  pervade  all  time  and  all  space,  all  ages 
and  all  worlds.  The  comparative  anatomist  has  stu 
died,  analysed  and  classified  every  species  of  vertebrate 
existence  that  now  walks,  or  flies,  or  creeps,  or  swims, 
or  reposes  among  the  fossil  remains  of  lost  forms  of 
being ;  and  he  discovers  that  they  all,  without  excep 
tion,  are  analogous ;  so  that  the  induction  becomes 
irresistible,  that  an  archetype  existed  previous  to  the 
creation  of  the  first  of  the  kind.  Shall  we  then  hesitate 
to  believe  that  the  fixedness  of  law  likewise  pervades 
the  moral  world?  We  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to  the  es- 


490  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

tablislied  fact,  that  an  ideal,  or  archetype,  prescribed 
the  form  of  animal  life ;  and  shall  we  not  believe  that 
the  type  of  all  intellectual  life  likewise  exists  in  the 
Divine  mind  ? 

I  know  that  there  is  a  pride  which  calls  this  fatal 
ism,  and  which  rebels  at  the  thought  that  the  Father 
of  life  should  control  what  he  has  made.  There  are 
those  who  must  needs  assert  for  their  individual  selves 
the  constant  possession  of  that  power  which  the  great 
English  poet  represents  the  bad  angels  to  have  lost 
heaven  for  once  attempting  to  usurp;  they  are  not 
content  with  being  gifted  with  the  faculty  of  discerning 
the  counsels  of  God,  and  becoming  happy  by  conform 
ing  to  his  decrees,  but  claim  the  privilege  of  acting 
irrespective  of  those  decrees.  Unsatisfied  with  having 
been  created  in  his  image, 'they  assume  the  liberty  to 
counteract  his  will.  They  do  not  perceive  that  cos- 
mical  order  depends  on  the  universality  and  absolute 
certainty  of  law;  that  for  that  end,  events  in  their 
course  are  not  merely  as  fixed  as  Ararat  and  the 
Andes,  but  follow  laws  that  are  •  much  older  than 
Andes  or  Ararat,  that  are  as  old  as  those  winch  up 
heaved  the  mountains.  The  glory  of  God  is  not  con- 

• 

tingent  on  man's  good  will,  but  all  existence  subserves 
his  purposes.  The  system  of  the  universe  is  as  a 
celestial  poem,  whose  beauty  is  from  all  eternity,  and 
must  not  be  marred  by  human  interpolations.  Things 
proceed  as  they  were  ordered,  in  their  nice,  and  well- 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  491 

adjusted,  and  perfect  harmony ;  so  that  as  the  hand  of 
the  skilful  artist  gathers  music  from  the  harp-strings, 
history  calls  it  forth  from  the  well-tuned  chords  of  time. 
Not  that  this  harmony  can  be  heard  during  the  tumult 
of  action.  Philosophy  comes  after  events,  and  gives 
the  reason  of  them,  and  describes  the  nature  of  their 
results.  The  great  mind  of  collective  man  may,  one 
day,  so  improve  in  self-consciousness  as  to  interpret 
the  present  and  foretell  the  future ;  but  as  yet,  the  end 
of  what  is  now  happening,  though  we  ourselves  partake 
in  it,  seems  to  fall  out  by  chance.  All  is  nevertheless 
one  whole ;  individuals,  families,  peoples,  the  race, 
march  in  accord  with  the  Divine  will ;  and  when  any 
part  of  the  destiny  of  humanity  is  fulfilled,  we  see  the 
ways  of  Providence  vindicated.  The  antagonisms  of 
imperfect  matter  and  the 'perfect  idea,  of  liberty  and 
necessary  law,  become  reconciled.  What  seemed 
irrational  confusion,  appears  as  the  web  woven  by 
light,  liberty  and  love.  But  this  is  not  perceived  till 
a  great  act  in  the  drama  of  life  is  finished.  The 
prayer  of  the  patriarch,  when  he  desired  to  behold  the 
Divinity  face  to  face,  was  denied;  but  he  was  able  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  Jehovah,  after  He  had  passed  by  \ 
and  so  it  fares  with  our  search  for  Him  in  the  wrest 
lings  of  the  world.  It  is  when  the  hour  of  conflict  is 
over,  that  history  comes  to  a  right  understanding  of 
the  strife,  and  is  ready  to  exclaim :  "  Lo !  God  is 
here,  and  we  knew  it  not."  At  the  foot  of  every  page 


49.2  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

in  the  annals  of  nations,  maybe  written,  "  God  reigns." 
Events,  as  they  pass  away,  "proclaim  their  Great 
Original;"  and  if  you  will  but  listen  reverently,  you 
may  hear  the  receding  centuries  as  they  roll  into  the 
dim  distances  of  departed  time,  perpetually  chanting 
"  TE  DEUM  LAUDAMUS,"  with  all  the  choral  voices  of 
the  countless  congregations  of  the  ages. 

It  is  because  God  is  visible  in  History  that  its 
office  is  the  noblest  except  that  of  the  poet.  The  poet 
is  at  once  the  interpreter  and  the  favorite  of  Heaven. 
He  catches  the  first  beam  of  light  that  flows  from  its 
uncreated  source.  He  repeats  the  message  of  the 
Infinite,  without  always  being  able  to  analyze  it,  and 
often  without  knowing  how  he  received  it,  or  why  he 
was  selected  for  its  utterance.  To  him  and  to  him 
alone,  history  yields  in  dignity ;  for  she  not  only  watches 
the  great  encounters  of  life,  but  recalls  what  had  van 
ished,  and  partaking  of  a  bliss  like  that  of  creating, 
restores  it  to  animated  being.  The  mineralogist  takes 
special  delight  in  contemplating  the  process  of  crystal 
lization,  as  though  he  had  caught  nature  at  her  work 
as  a  geometrician ;  giving  herself  up  to  be  gazed  at 
without  concealment  such  as  she  appears  in  the  very 
moment  of  exertion.  But  history,  as  she  reclines  in 
the  lap  of  eternity,  sees  the  mind  of  humanity  itself 
engaged  in  formative  efforts,  constructing  sciences, 
promulgating  laws,  organizing  commonwealths,  and 
displaying  its  energies  in  the  visible  movement  of  its 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  493 

intelligence.  Of  all  pursuits  that  require  analysis, 
history,  therefore,  stands  first.  It  is  equal  to  philoso 
phy  ;  for  as  certainly  as  the  actual  bodies  forth  the 
ideal,  so  certainly  does  history  contain  philosophy.  It 
is  grander  than  the  .natural  sciences ;  for  its  study  is 
man,  the  last  work  of  creation,  and  the  most  perfect  in 
its  relations  with  the  Infinite.  ^ 

In  surveying  the  short  period  since  man  was 
created,  the  proofs  of  progress  are  so  abundant,  that 
we  do  not  know  with  which  of  them  to  begin,  or  how 
they  should  be  classified.  He  is  seen  in  the  earliest 
stages  of  society,  bare  of  abstract  truth,  unskilled  in  the 
methods  of  induction,  and  hardly  emancipated  from 
bondage  to  the  material  universe.  How  wonderful  is 
it,  then,  that  a  being  whose  first  condition  was  so  weak, 
so  humble,  nnd  so  naked,  and  of  whom  no  monument 
older  than  forty  centuries  can  be  found,  should  have 
accumulated  such  fruitful  stores  of  intelligence,  and 
have  attained  such  perfection  of  culture  ! 

Look  round  upon  this  beautiful  earth,  this  "  tem 
perate  zone  of  the  solar  system,"  and  see  how  much  man 
has  done  for  its  subjection  and  adornment ;  making 
the  wilderness  blossom  with  cities,  and  the  seemingly 
inhospitable  sea  cheerfully  social  with  the  richly 
freighted  fleets  of  world-wide  commerce.  Look  also 
at  the  condition  of  society,  and  consider  by  what 
amenities  barbarism  has  been  softened  and  refined; 
what  guarantees  of  intelligence  and  liberty  have  su- 


494  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

perseded  the  lawlessness  of  brute  force,  and 
copious  interchanges  of  thought  and  love  have  taken 
the  place  of  the-  sombre  stolidity  of  the  savage.  The 
wanderings  of  the  nations  are  greater  now  than  ever  in 
time  past,  and  productive  of  happier  results.  Peaceful 
emigration  sets  more  myriads  in  motion  than  all  the 
hordes  of  armed  barbarians,  whether  Gauls  or  Scyth 
ians,  Goths  or  Huns,  Scandinavians  or  Saracens,  that 
ever  burst  from  the  steppes  of  Asia  and  the  Northern 
nurseries  of  men.  Our  own  city  gives  evidence  that 
the  civilized  world  is  becoming  one  federation ;  for  its 
storehouses  exhibit  all  products,  from  furs  that  are 
whitened  by  Arctic  snows,  to  spices  ripened  under  the 
burning  sun  of  the  equator ;  and  its  people  is  the 
representative  of  all  the  cultivated  nations  of  Europe. 

Every  clime  is  tasked  also  to  enlarge  the  boundaries 
of  knowledge.  Minerals  that  lie  on  the  peaks  of  the 
Himalayas,  animals  that  hide  in  the  densest  jungles 
of  Africa,  flowers  that  bloom  in  the  solitudes  of  Su 
matra,  or  the  trackless  swamps  along  the  Amazon,  are 
brought  within  the  observation  and  domain  of  science. 

With  equal  diligence  the  internal  structure  of  plants 
and  animals  has  been  subjected  to  examination.  We 
may  gaze  with  astonishment  at  the  advances  which  the 
past  fifty  years  have  made  in  the  science  of  comparative 
physiology.  By  a  most  laborious  and  long-continued 
use  of  the  microscope,  and  by  a  vast  number  of  careful 
and  minute  dissections,  man  has  gained  such  insight 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  495 

into  animal  being,  as  not  only  to  define  its  primary 
groups,  but  almost  to  draw  the  ideal  archetype  that 
preceded  their  creation.  Not  content  with  the  study 
of  his  own  organization  and  the  comparison  of  it  with 
the  Fauna  of  every  zone,  he  has  been  able  to  count 
the  pulsations  of  the  heart  of  a  caterpillar ;  to  watch 
the  flow  of  blood  through  the  veins  of  the  silkworm ; 
to  enumerate  the  millions  of  living  things  that  dwell  in 
a  drop  of  water ;  to  take  the  census  of  creatures  so 
small,  that  parts  of  their  members  remain  invisible  to 
the  most  powerful  microscope ;  to  trace  the  lungs  of 
the  insect  which  floats  so  gayly  on  the  limber  fans 
of  its  wings,  and  revels  in  the  full  fruition  of  its  tran 
scendent  powers  of  motion. 

The  astronomer,  too,  has  so  perfected  his  skill,  that 
he  has  weighed  in  the  balance  some,  even,  of  the  stars, 
and  marked  the  course  and  the  period  of  their  revolu 
tions  ;  while,  within  the  limits  of  our  own  system,  he 
has  watched  the  perturbations  of  the  wandering  fires, 
till  he  has  achieved  his  crowning  victory  by  discovering 
a  priori  the  existence  and  the  place  of  an  exterior 
planet. 

I  have  reminded  you  of  the  few  hundreds  of  years 
during  which  man  has  been  a  tenant  of  earth,  and  of 
the  great  proportion  that  the  last  half  century  bears  to 
the  whole  of  his  existence.  Let  us  consider  this  more 
closely;  for  I  dare  assert  that,  in  some  branches  of 
human  activity,  the  period  we  commemorate  has  done 


496  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

more  for  his  instruction  and  improvement  than  all 
which  went  before. 

I  do  not  here  refer  to  our  own  country,  because  it 
is  altogether  new,  though  its  growth  merits  a  passing 
remark ;  for  within  this  time  the  area  of  our  land  has 
been  so  extended  that  a  similar  increase,  twice  repeated, 
would  carry  THE  STARS  AND  STRIPES  to  the  polar  ice 
and  to  the  isthmus  ;  while  our  population  now  exceeds 
fivefold  all  who  existed  at  the  end  of  the  two  previous 
centuries,  and  probably  outnumbers  all  the  generations 
that  sleep  beneath  the  soil.  I  speak  rather  of  results, 
in  which  the  old  world  takes  its  share;  and  I  will 
begin  the  enumeration  by  reference  to  an  improvement 
which  we  may  delight  to  consider  our  own.  Your 
thoughts  go  in  advance  of  me  to  recall  the  fact,  that 
since  our  Society  was  organized,  steam  was  first  em 
ployed  for  both  interior  and  oceanic  navigation.  We, 

BROTHERS    of    the    NEW    YORK    HISTORICAL    SOCIETY, 

remember  with  pride  that  this  great  achievement  in 
behalf  of  the  connection  and  the  unity  of  the  world,  is 
due  to  the  genius  of  one  of  our  members,  and  the  en 
couragement  of  another ;  to  ROBERT  FULTON  and  to 
ROBERT  R.  LIVINGSTON. 

The  same  superiority  belongs  to  this  age  in  refer 
ence  to  the  construction  of  the  means  of  internal  com 
munication.  What  are  all  the  artificial  channels  of 
travel  and  of  commerce  that  previously  existed,  com 
pared  with  the  canals  and  railroads  constructed  in  our 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  497 

time  ?  I  shall  not  pause  to  estimate  the  number  of 
these  newly  made  highways ;  their  collective  length ; 
their  capacity  for  journeyings  and  for  trade  :  I  leave  to 
others  to  contrast  the  occasional  Oriental  or  African 
caravan  with  the  daily  freight-train  on  one  of  our  iron 
pathways ;  the  post-chaise,  the  stage-coach,  and  the 
diligence,  with  the  incessant  movement  in  the  canal 
boats  and  the  flying  cars  of  the  railroad.  Yet  in  your 
presence,  MY  BROTHERS,  remembering  the  eleven  men 
who,  fifty  years  ago,  met  and  organized  our  ^society,  I 
must  for  an  instant  direct  attention  to  the  system  which 
connects  our  own  Hudson  with  the  basins  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  of  the  Delaware,  of  the  Susquehanna  and 
of  the  Mississippi.  This  magnificent  work,  one  of  the 
noblest  triumphs  of  civilized  man,  so  friendly  to  peace 
and  industry,  to  national  union  and  true  glory,  was 
effected  through  the  special  instrumentality  of  one  of 
our  original  founders  and  most  active  members ;  the 
same  DE  WITT  CLINTON,  who  in  days  when  the  city 
of  New  York  was  proud  of  her  enlightened  magistracy, 
was  at  the  head  of  her  municipal  government,  esteem 
ing  it  a  part  of  his  public  duty  to  care  disinterestedly 
for  the  welfare  of  science,  and  the  fame  of  the  great 
men  of  the  country. 

The   half  century  which   now  closes,  is   likewise 

found  to  surpass  all  others,  if  we  consider  the  extent 

of  its   investigations   into   the   history  of  the   earth. 

Geology,  in  that  time,  has  assumed  a  severe  scientific 

32 


498  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

form,  doing  the  highest  honor,  not  merely  to  the  indi 
vidual  men  who  have  engaged  in  the  pursuit,  but  to 
human  nature  itself,  by  the  persevering  application  of 
inductive  reasoning,  and  the  imperturbable  serenity  with 
which  seeming  contradictions  have  been  studied  till 
they  have  been  found  to  confirm  the  general  laws.  Thus 
the  geologist  has  been  able  to  ascertain,  in  some 
degree,  the  chronology  of  our  planet ;  to  demonstrate 
the  regularity  of  its  structure  where  it  seemed  most 
disturbed ;  and  where  nature  herself  was  at  fault,  and 
the  trail  of  her  footsteps  broken,  to  restore  the  just 
arrangement  of  strata  that  had  been  crushed  into 
confusion,  or  turned  over  in  apparently  inexplicable 
and  incongruous  folds.  He  has  perused  the  rocky 
tablets  on  which  time-honored  nature  has  set  her  in 
scriptions.  He  has  opened  the  massive  sepulchres  of 
departed  forms  of  being,  and  pored  over  the  copious 
records  preserved  there  in  stone,  till  they  have  revealed 
the  majestic  march  of  creative  power,  from  the  organism 
of  the  zoophyte  entombed  in  the  lowest  depths  of 
Siluria,  through  all  the  rising  gradations  of  animal  life, 
up  to  its  sublimest  result  in  Godlike  man. 

Again :  It  is  only  in  our  day  that  the  sun  has  been 
taught  to  do  the  work  of  an  artist,  and  in  obedience  to 
man's  will,  the  great  wave  of  light  in  its  inconceivable 
swiftness,  is  compelled  to  delineate^  with  inimitable 
exactness,  any  object  that  the  eye  of  day  looks  upon. 

Of  the  nature  of  electricity,  more  has  been  discov- 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  499 

ered  in  the  last  fifty  years  than  in  all  past  time,  not 
even  excepting  the  age  when  our  own  Franklin  called 
it  from  the  clouds.  This  aerial,  invisible  power,  has 
learnt  to  fly  as  man's  faithful  messenger,  till  the  mystic 
wires  tremble  with  his  passions  and  bear  his  errands 
on  the  wings  of  lightning.  He  divines  how  this  agency, 
which  holds  the  globe  in  its  invisible  embrace,  guides 
floating  atoms  to  their  places  in  the  crystal ;  or  teaches 
the  mineral  ores  the  lines  in  which  they  should  move, 
where  to  assemble  together,  and  where  to  lie  down  and 
take  their  rest.  It  whispers  to  the  meteorologist  the 
secrets  of  the  atmosphere  and  the  skies.  For  the 
chemist  in  his  laboratory  it  perfects  the  instruments 
of  heat,  dissolves  the  closest  affinities,  and  reunites  the 
sundered  elements.  It  joins  the  artisan  at  his  toil,  and 
busily  employed  at  his  side,  this  subtlest  and  swiftest 
of  existences  tamely  applies  itself  to  its  task,  with 
patient  care  reproduces  the  designs  of  the  engraver  or 
the  plastic  art,  and  disposes  the  metal  with  a  skilful 
delicacy  and  exactness  which  the  best  workman  cannot 
rival.  Nay  more :  it  enters  into  the  composition  of 
man  himself,  and  is  ever  present  as  the  inmost  witness 
of  his  thoughts  and  volitions.  These  are  discoveries  of 
our  time. 

But  enough  of  this  contrast  of  the  achievement  of 
one  age  with  that  of  all  preceding  ones.  It  may  seem 
to  be  at  variance  with  our  theme,  that  as  republican 
institutions  gain  ground,  WOMAN  appears  less  on  the 


500  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSEES. 

theatre  of  events.  She,  whose  presence  in  this  briery 
world  is  as  a  lily  among  thorns,  whose  smile  is  pleasant 
like  the  light  of  morning,  and  whose  eye  is  the.  gate  of 
heaven ;  she,  whom  nature  so  reveres,  that  the  lovely 
veil  of  her  spirit  is  the  best  terrestrial  emblem  of 
beauty,  must  cease  to  command  armies  or  reign  su 
preme  over  nations.  Yet  the  progress  of  liberty, 
while  it  has  made  her  less  conspicuous,  has  redeemed 
her  into  the  possession  of  the  full  dignity  of  her  nature, 
has  made  her  not  man's  slave,  but  his  companion,  his 
counsellor,  and  fellow-martyr;  and,  for  an  occasional 
ascendency  in  political  affairs,  has  substituted  the 
uniform  enjoyment  of  domestic  equality.  The  avenue 
to  active  public  life  seems  closed  against  her,  but 
without  impairing  her  power  over  mind,  or  her  fame. 
The  lyre  is  as  obedient  to  her  touch,  the  muse  as 
coming  to  her  call,  as  to  that  of  man ;  and  truth  in  its 
purity  finds  no  more  honored  interpreter. 

When  comparisons  are  drawn  between  longer  pe 
riods,  the  progress  of  the  race  appears  from  the  change 
in  the  condition  of  its  classes.  Time  knows  no  holier 
mission  than  to  assert  the  rights  of  labor,  and  it  has,  in 
some  measure,  been  mindful  of  the  duty.  Were  Aris 
totle  or  Plato  to  come  among  us,  they  would  find  no 
contrast  more  complete  than  between  the  workshops  of 
their  Athens,  and  those  of  New  York.  In  their  day 
the  bondmen  practised  the  mechanic  arts  ;  nor  was  it 
conceived  that  the  world  could  do  its  work  except  by 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  501 

the  use  of  slaves.  But  labor  deserves  and  has  the 
right  to  be  dignified  and  ennobled,  and  the  auspicious 
revolution  in  its  condition  has  begun.  Here  the  me 
chanic,  at  the  shipyard,  or  the  iron-works,  or  wherever 
may  be  the  task  of  his  choice,  owns  no  master  on 
earth ;  and  while,  by  the  careful  study  and  employment 
of  the  forces  of  nature,  he  multiplies  his  powers,  he 
sweetens  his  daily  toil  by  the  consciousness  of  personal 
independence,  and  the  enjoyment  of  his  acknowledged 
claim  to  honor  no  less  than  to  reward. 

The  fifty  years  which  we  celebrate,  have  taken 
mighty  strides  toward  the  abolition  of  servitude.  Prus 
sia,  in  the  hour  of  its  sufferings  and  its  greatest  calami 
ties,  renovated  its  existence  partly  by  the  establishment 
of  schools,  and  partly  by  changing  its  serfs  into  a  pro 
prietary  peasantry.  In  Hungary,  the  attempt  toward 
preserving  the  nationality  of  the  Magyars  may  have 
failed ;  but  the  last  vestiges  of  bondage  have  been 
effaced,  and  the  holders  of  the  plough  have  become  the 
owners  of  themselves  and  of  its  soil.  • 

If  events  do,  as  I  believe,  correspond  to  the  Divine 
idea ;  if  God  is  the  fountain  of  all  goodness,  the  in- 
spirer  of  true  affection,  the  source  of  all  intelligence; 
there  is  nothing  of  so  great  moment  to  the  race  as  the 
conception  of  his  existence ;  and  a  true  apprehension 
of  his  relations  to  man  must  constitute  the  turning 
point  in  the  progress  of  the  world.  And  it  has  been 
so.  A  better  knowledge  of  his  nature  is  the  dividing 


502  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

line  that  separates  ancient  history  from  modern ;  the 
old  time  from  the  new.  The  thought  of  Divine  unity 
as  an  absolute  cause  was  familiar  to  antiquity ;  but  the 
undivided  testimony  of  the  records  of  all  cultivated 
nations  shows  that  it  took  no  hold  of  the  popular 
affections.  Philosophers  might  conceive  this  Divine 
unity  as  purest  action,  unmixed  with  matter ;  as  fate, 
holding  the  universe  in  its  invincible,  unrelenting 
grasp ;  as,  reason,  going  forth  to  the  work  of  creation ; 
as  the  primal  source  of  the  ideal  archetypes,  according 
to  which  the  world  was  fashioned ;  as  boundless  power, 
careless  of  boundless  existence ;  as  the  infinite  one, 
slumbering  unconsciously  in  the  infinite  all.  Nothing 
of  tin's  could  take  hold  of  the  common  mind,  or  make 
"  Peor  and  Baalim 

Forsake  their  temples  dim," 
or  throw  down  the  altars  of  superstition. 

For  the  regeneration  of  the  world,  it  was  requisite 
that  the  Divine  Being  should  enter  into  the  abodes  and 
the  hearts  of  men,  and  dwell  there;  that  a  belief  in 
him  should  be  received,  which  should  include  all  truth 
respecting  his  essence ;  that  he  should  be  known  not 
only  as  an  abstract  and  absolute  cause,  but  as  the 
infinite  fountain  of  moral  excellence  and  beauty ;  not  as 
a  distant  Providence  of  boundless  power  and  uncertain 
or  inactive  will,  but  as  God  present  in  the  flesh  ;  not 
as  an  absolute  lawgiver,  holding  the  material  world 
and  all  intelligent  existence  in  the  chains  of  necessity, 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  503 

but  as  a  creative  spirit,  indwelling  in  man,  his  fellow- 
worker  and  guide. 

When  the  Divine  Being  was  thus  presented  to  the 
soul,  he  touched  at  once  man's  aspirations,  affections, 
and  intelligence,  and  faith  in  him  sunk  into  the  inmost 
heart  of  humanity.  In  vain  did  restless  pride,  as  that 
of  ARIUS,  seek  to  paganise  Christianity  and  make  it 
the  ally  of  imperial  despotism ;  to  prefer  a  belief  resting 
on  authority  and  unsupported  by  an  inward  witness, 
over  the  clear  revelation  of  which  the  millions  might 
see  and  feel  and  know  the  divine  glory  ;  to  substitute 
the  conception,  framed  after  the  pattern  of  heathenism, 
of  an  agent,  superhuman  yet  finite,  for  faith  in  the 
ever-continuing  union  of  God  with  man ;  to  wrong  the 
majesty  and  holiness  of  the  Spirit  of  God  by  represent 
ing  it  as  a  birth  of  time.  Against  these  attempts  to 
subordinate  the  enfranchising  virtue  of  truth  to  false 
worship  and  to  arbitrary  power,  reason  asserted  its 
supremacy,  and  the  party  of  superstition  was  driven 
from  the  field.  Then  mooned  Ashtaroth  was  eclipsed, 
and  Osiris  was  seen  no  more  in  Memphian  grove ;  then 
might  have  been  heard  the  crash  of  the  fauing  temples 
of  Polytheism ;  and,  instead  of  them,  came  that  har 
mony  which  holds  Heaven  and  Earth  in  happiest  union. 

Amid  the  deep  sorrows  of  humanity  during  the  sad 
conflict  which  was  protracted  through  centuries  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  past  and  the  reconstruction  of  society, 
the  consciousness  of  an  incarnate  God  carried  peace 


504  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

into  the  bosom  of  mankind.  That  faith  emancipated 
the  slave,  broke  the  bondage  of  woman,  redeemed  the 
captive,  elevated  the  low,  lifted  up  the  oppressed,  con 
soled  the  wretched,  inspired  alike  the  heroes  of  thought 
and  the  countless  masses.  The  down-trodden  nations 
clung  to  it  as  to  the  certainty  of  their  future  emanci 
pation  ;  and  it  so  filled  the  heart  of  the  greatest  poet 
of  the  Middle  Ages — perhaps  the  greatest  poet  of  all 
time — that  he  had  no  prayer  so  earnest  as  to  behold  in 
the  profound  and  clear  substance  of  the  eternal  light, 
that  circling  of  reflected  glory  which  showed  the  image 
of  man. 

From  the  time  that  this  truth  of  the  triune  God 
was  clearly  announced,  he  was  no  longer  dimly  con 
ceived  as  a  remote  and  shadowy  causality,  but  appeared 
as  all  that  is  good  and  beautiful  and  true ;  as  goodness 
itself,  incarnate  and  interceding,  redeeming  and  in 
spiring  ;  the  union  of  liberty,  love,  and  light ;  the  in 
finite  cause,  the  infinite  mediator,  the  infinite  in  and 
with  the  universe,  as  the  paraclete  and  comforter.  The 
doctrine  once  communicated  to  man,  was  not  to  be 
eradicated.  It  spread  as  widely,  as  swiftly,  and  as 
silently  as  light,  and  the  idea  of  GOD  WITH  us  dwelt 
and  dwells  in  every  system  of  thought  that  can  pretend 
to  vitality  ;  in  every  oppressed  people,  whose  struggles 
to  be  free  have  the  promise  of  success ;  in  every  soul 
that  sighs  for  redemption. 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  505 

This  brings  me  to  the  last  division  of  my  subject. 
That  God  has  dwelt  and  dwells  with  humanity  is  not 
only  the  noblest  illustration  of  its  nature,  but  the  per 
fect  guarantee  for  its  progress.  We  are  entering  on  a 
new  era  in  the  history  of  the  race,  and  though  we  can 
not  cast  its  horoscope,  we  at  least  may  in  some  meas 
ure  discern  the  course  of  its  motion. 

Here  we  are  met  at  the  very  threshold  of  our  argu 
ment  by  an  afterbirth  of  the  materialism  of  the  last 
century.  A  system  which  professes  to  re-construct 
society  on  the  simple  observation  of  the  laws  of  the 
visible  universe,  and  which  is  presented  with  arrogant 
pretension  under  the  name  of  the  "Positive  Philos 
ophy,"  scoffs  at  all  questions  of  metaphysics  and  reli 
gious  faith  as  insoluble  and  unworthy  of  human  atten 
tion  ;  and  affects  to  raise  the  banner  of  an  affirming 
belief  in  the  very  moment  that  it  describes  its  main 
characteristic  as  a  refusal  to  recognise  the  infinite. 
How  those  who  own  no  source  of  knowledge  but 
the  senses,  can  escape  its  humiliating  yoke,  I  leave  them 
to  discover.  But  it  is  as  little  entitled  fo  be  feared  as 
to  be  received.  When  it  has  put  together  all  that  it 
can  collect  of  the  laws  of  the  material  universe,  it  can 
advance  no  further  toward  the  explanation  of  existence, 
morals,  or  reason. 

Philosophy  which  leaned  on  Heaven  before, 
Shrinks  to  her  second  cause,  and  is  no  more. 
They  who  listen  to  the  instructions  of  inward  expe- 


506  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

rience,  may  smile  at  the  air  of  wisdom  with  which  a 
scheme  that  has  no  basis  in  the  soul  is  presented  to  the 
world  as  a  new  universal  creed,  the  Catholic  Church 
of  the  materialist.  Its  handful  of  acolytes  wonder  why 
they  remain  so  few.  But  Atheism  never  holds  sway 
over  human  thought  except  as  a  usurper ;  no  child  of 
its  own  succeeding.  Error  is  a  convertible  term  with 
decay.  Falsehood  and  death  are  synonyms.  False 
hood  can  gain  no  permanent  foothold  in  the  immortal 
soul ;  for  there  can  be  no  abiding  or  real  faith,  except 
in  that  which  is  eternally  and  universally  true.  The 
future  will  never  produce  a  race  of  atheists,  and  their 
casual  appearance  is  but  the  evidence  of  some  ill-under 
stood  truth;  some  mistaken  direction  of  the  human 
mind;  some  perverse  or  imperfect  view  of  creation. 
The  atheist  denies  the  life  of  life,  which  is  the  source 
of  liberty.  Proclaiming  himself  a  mere  finite  thing 
of  to-day,  he  rejects  all  connection  with  the  infinite. 
Pretending  to  search  for  truth,  he  abjures  the  spirit  of 
truth.  Were  it  possible  that  the  world  of  mankind 
could  become*  without  God,  that  greatest  death,  the 
death  of  the  race  would  ensue.  It  is  because  man 
cannot  separate  himself  from  his  inward  experience 
and  his  yearning  after  the  infinite,  that  he  is  capable 
of  progress  ;  that  he  can  receive  a  religion  whose  his 
tory  is  the  triumph  of  right  over  evil,  whose  symbol  is 
the  resurrection. 

The  reciprocal  relation  between  God  and  humanity 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  507 

constitutes  the  UNITY  of  the  race.  The  more  complete 
recognition  of  that  unity  is  the  first  great  promise 
which  we  receive  from  the  future.  Nations  have, 
indeed,  had  their  separate  creeds  and  institutions  and 
homes.  The  commonwealth  of  mankind,  as  a  great 
whole,  was  not  to  be  constructed  in  one  generation. 
But  the  different  peoples  are  to  be  considered  as  its 
component  parts,  prepared,  like  so  many  springs  and 
wheels,  one  day  to  be  put  together. 

Every  thing  tends  to  that  consummation.  Geo 
graphical  research  has  penetrated  nearly  every  part 
of  the  world,  revealed  the  paths  of  the  ocean,  and 
chronicled  even  the  varying  courses  of  the  winds ; 
while  commerce  circles  the  globe.  At  our  Antipodes, 
a  new  continent,  lately  tenanted  only  by  the  wildest  of 
men  and  the  strangest  products  of  nature,  the  kangaroo 
and  the  quadruped  with  the  bill  of  a  bird,  becomes  an 
outpost  of  civilization,  one  day  to  do  service  in  regen 
erating  the  world. 

In  this  great  work  our  country  holds  the  noblest 
rank.  Rome  subdued  the  regions  round  the  Mediter 
ranean  and  the  Euxine,  both  inland  seas ;  the  German 
Empire  spread  from  the  German  Ocean  to  the  Adriatic. 
Our  land  extends  far  into  the  wilderness,  and  beyond 
the  wilderness  ;  and  while  on  this  side  the  great  moun 
tains  it  gives  the  Western  nations  of  Europe  a  theatre 
for  the  renewal  of  their  youth,  on  the  transmontane 
side,  the  hoary  civilisation  of  the  farthest  antiquity 


508  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

leans  forward  from  Asia  to  receive  the  glad  tidings 
of  the  messenger  of  freedom.  The  islands  of  the 
Pacific  entreat  our  protection,  and  at  our  suit  the 
Empire  of  Japan  breaks  down  its  wall  of  exclusion. 

Our  land  is  not  more  the  recipient  of  the  men  of 
all  countries  than  of  their  ideas.  Annihilate  the  past 
of  any  one  leading  nation  of  the  world,  and  our  destiny 
would  have  been  changed.  Italy  and  Spain,  in  the  per 
sons  of  COLUMBUS  and  ISABELLA,  joined  together  for 
the  great  discovery  that  opened  America  to  emigration 
and  commerce ;  Prance  contributed  to  its  independence ; 
the  search  for  the  origin  of  the  language  we  speak  car 
ries  us  to  India ;  our  religion  is  from  Palestine ;  of  the 
hymns  sung  in  our  churches,  some  were  first  heard  in 
Italy,  some  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  some  on  the  banks 
of  the  Euphrates ;  our  arts  come  from  Greece ;  our 
jurisprudence  from  Rome  ;  our  maritime  code  from 
Russia;  England  taught  us  the  system  of  Represen 
tative  Government ;  the  noble  Republic  of  the  United 
Provinces  bequeathed  to  us,  in  the  world  of  thought, 
the  great  idea  of  the  toleration  of  all  opinions ;  in  the 
world  of  action,  the  prolific  principle  of  federal  union. 
Our  country  stands,  therefore,  more  than  any  other,  as 
the  realisation  of  the  unity  of  the  race. 

There  is  one  institution  so  wide  in  its  influence  and 
its  connections,  that  it  may  already  be  said  to  repre 
sent  the  intelligence  of  universal  man.  I  have  reserved 
to  this  place  a  reference  to  the  power,  which  has 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  509 

obtained  its  majestic  development  within  the  last  fifty 
years,  till  it  now  forms  the  controlling  agency  in  reno 
vating  civilisation ;  surpassing  in  the  extent  and  effect 
iveness  of  its  teachings  the  lessons  of  the  Academy  and 
of  the  pulpit.  The  invisible  force  of  the  magnetic  ether 
does  not  more  certainly  extend  throughout  the  air  and 
the  earth,  than  the  press  gives  an  impulse  to  the  wave 
of  thought,  so  that  it  vibrates  round  the  globe.  The 
diversity  of  nationalities  and  of  governments  continues ; 
the  press  illustrates  the  unity  of  our  intellectual  world, 
and  constitutes  itself  the  organ  of  collective  humanity. 

By  the  side  of  the  press,  the  system  of  free  schools, 
though  still  very  imperfectly  developed,  has  made  such 
progress  since  it  first  dawned  in  Geneva  and  in  parishes 
of  Scotland,  that  we  claim  it  of  the  future  as  a  univer 
sal  institution. 

The  moment  we  enter  upon  an  enlarged  consider 
ation  of  existence,  we  may  as  well  believe  in  beings 
that  are  higher  than  ourselves,  as  in  those  that  are 
lower ;  nor  is  it  absurd  to  inquire  whether  there  is  a 
plurality  of  worlds.  Induction  warrants  the  opinion, 
that  the  planets  and  the  stars  are  tenanted,  or  are  to  be 
tenanted,  by  inhabitants  endowed  with  reason ;  for 
though  man  is  but  a  new  comer  upon  earth,  the  lower 
animals  had  appeared  through  unnumbered  ages,  like 
a  long  twilight  before  the  day.  Some  indeed  tremu 
lously  inquire,  how  it  may  be  in  those  distant  spheres 
with  regai  d  to  redemption  ?  But  the  scruple  is  un- 


510  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

called  for.  Since  the  Mediator  is  from  the  beginning, 
he  exists  for  all  intelligent  creatures  not  less  than  for 
all  time.  It  is  very  narrow  and  contradictory  to  con 
fine  his  office  to  the  planet  on  which  we  dwell.  In 
other  worlds  the  facts  of  history  may  be,  or  rather,  by 
all  the  laws  of  induction,  will  be  different ;  but  the 
essential  relations  of  the  finite  to  the  infinite  are,  and 
must  be  invariable.  It  is  not  more  certain  that  the 
power  of  gravity  extends  through  the  visible  universe, 
than  that  throughout  all  time  and  all  space,  there  is 
but  one  mediation  between  God  and  created  reason. 

But  leaving  aside  the  question,  how  far  rational  life 
extends,  it  is  certain  that  on  earth  the  capacity  of 
coming  into  connection  with  the  infinite  is  the  distin 
guishing  mark  of  our  kind,  and  proves  it  to  be  one. 
Here,  too,  is  our  solace  for  the  indisputable  fact,  that 
humanity  in  its  upward  course  passes  through  the 
shadows  of  death,  and  over  the  relics  of  decay.  Its 
march  is  strown  with  the  ruins  of  formative  efforts, 
that  were  never  crowned  with  success.  How  often 
does  the  just  man  suffer,  and  sometimes  suffer  most  for 
his  brightest  virtues  !  How  often  do  noblest  sacrifices 
to  regenerate  a  nation  seem  to  have  been  offered  in 
vain !  How  often  is  the  champion  of  liberty  struck 
down  in  the  battle,  and  the  symbol  which  he  uplifted, 
trampled  underfoot !  But  what  is  the  life  of  an  indi 
vidual  to  that  of  his  country  ?  of  a  state,  or  a  nation, 
at  a  given  moment,  to  that  of  the  race  ?  The  just  man 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  511 

would  cease  to  be  just,  if  he  were  not  willing  to  perish 
for  his  kind.  The  scoria  that  fly  from  the  iron  at  the 
stroke  of  the  artisan,  show  how  busily  he  plies  his  task ; 
the  clay  which  is  rejected  from  the  potter's  wheel, 
proves  the  progress  of  his  work ;  the  chips  of  marble 
that  are  thrown  off  by  the  chisel  of  the  sculptor,  leave 
the  miracle  of  beauty  to  grow  under  his  hand.  No 
thing  is  lost.  I  leave  to  others  the  questioning  of 
Infinite  power,  why  the  parts  are  distributed  as  they 
are,  and  not  otherwise.  Humanity  moves  on,  attended 
by  its  glorious  company  of  martyrs.  It  is  our  conso 
lation,  that  their  sorrows  and  persecution  and  death 
are  encountered  in  the  common  cause,  and  not  in  vain. 

The  world  is  just  beginning  to  take  to  heart  this 
principle  of  the  unity  of  the  race,  and  to  discover  how 
fully  and  how  beneficently  it  is  fraught  with  inter 
national,  political,  and  social  revolutions.  Without 
attempting  to  unfold  what  the  greater  wisdom  of 
coming  generations  can  alone  adequately  conceive  and 
practically  apply,  we  may  observe,  that  the  human 
mind  tends  not  only  toward  unity,  but  UNIVERSALITY. 

Infinite  truth  is  never  received  without  some  ad 
mixture  of  error,  and  in  the  struggle  which  necessarily 
ensues  between  the  two,  the  error  constantly  undergoes 
the  process  of  elimination.  Investigations  are  con 
tinued  without  a  pause.  The  explanatory  hypothesis, 
perpetually  renewed,  receives  perpetual  correction. 
Fresh  observations  detect  the  fallacies  in  the  former 


512  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

hypothesis;  again,  mind,  acting  a  priori,  revises  its 
theory,  of  which  it  repeats  and  multiplies  the  tests. 
Thus  it  proceeds  from  observation  to  hypothesis,  and 
from  hypothesis  to  observation,  progressively  gaining 
clearer  perceptions,  and  more  perfectly  mastering  its 
stores  of  accumulated  knowledge  by  generalisations 
which  approximate  nearer  and  nearer  to  absolute  truth. 

With  each  successive  year,  a  larger  number  of 
minds  in  each  separate  nationality  inquires  into  man's 
end  and  nature  ;  and  as  truth  and  the  laws  of  God  are 
unchangeable,  the  more  that  engage  in  their  study,  the 
greater  will  be  the  harvest.  Nor  is  this  all ;  the 
nations  are  drawn  to  each  other  as  members  of  one 
family;  and  their  mutual  acquisitions  become  a  com 
mon  property. 

In  this  manner,  truth,  as  discerned  by  the  mind  of 
man,  is  constantly  recovering  its  primal  lustre,  and  is 
steadily  making  its  way  toward  general  acceptance. 
Not  that  greater  men  will  appear.  Who  can  ever 
embody  the  high  creative  imagination  of  the  poet  more 
perfectly  than  HOMER,  or  DANTE,  or  SHAKESPEARE? 
Who  can  discern  "  the  ideas "  of  existences  more 
clearly  than  PLATO,  or  be  furnished  with  all  the 
instruments  of  thought  and  scientific  attainment  more 
completely  than  ARISTOTLE  ?  To  what  future  artist 
will  beauty  be  more  intimately  present,  than  to  PHIDIAS 
or  RAPHAEL  ?  In  universality  of  mind,  who  will  sur 
pass  BACON,  or  LEIBNITZ,  or  KANT  ?  Indeed,  the 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  513 

world  may  never  again  see  their  peers.  There  are  not 
wanting  those  who  believe,  that  the  more  intelligence  is 
diffused,  the  less  will  the  intelligent  be  distinguished 
from  one  another ;  that  the  colossal  greatness  of  indi 
viduals  implies  a  general  inferiority  ;  just  as  the  solitary 
tree  on  the  plain  alone  reaches  the  fullest  development ; 
or  as  the  rock  that  stands  by  itself  in  the  wilderness, 
seems  to  cast  the  widest  and  most  grateful  shade ;  in  a 
word,  that  the  day  of  mediocrity  attends  the  day  of 
general  culture.  But  if  wiser  men  do  not  arise,  there 
will  certainly  be  more  wisdom.  The  collective  man 
of  the  future  will  see  further,  and  see  more  clearly, 
than  the  collective  man  of  to-day,  and  he  will  share  his 
superior  power  of  vision  and  his  attainments  with  every 
one  of  his  time.  Thus  it  has  come  to  pass,  that  the 
child  now  at  school  could  instruct  COLUMBUS  respecting 
the  figure  of  the  earth,  or  NEWTON  respecting  light,  or 
FRANKLIN  on  electricity ;  that  the  husbandman  or  the 
mechanic  of  a  Christian  congregation  solves  questions 
respecting  God  and  man  and  man's  destiny,  which 
perplexed  the  most  gifted  philosophers  of  ancient 
Greece. 

Finally,  as  a  consequence  of  the  tendency  of  the 
race  towards  unity  and  universality,  the  organization 
of  society  must  more  and  more  conform  to  the  princi 
ple  of  FREEDOM.  This  will  be  the  last  triumph ;  partly 
because  the  science  of  government  enters  into  the 
sphere  of  personal  interests,  and  meets  resistance  from 
33 


514  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES. 

private  selfishness ;  and  partly  because  society,  before 
it  can  be  constituted  aright,  must  turn  its  eye  upon 
itself,  observe  the  laws^of  its  own  existence,  and  arrive 
at  the  consciousness  of  its  capacities  and  relations. 

The  system  of  political  economy  may  solve  the 
question  of  the  commercial  intercourse  of  nations,  by 
demonstrating  that  they  all  are  naturally  fellow-workers 
and  friends ;  but  its  abandonment  of  labor  to  the  un 
mitigated  effects  of  personal  competition  can  never  be 
accepted  as  the  rule  for  the  dealings  of  man  with  man. 
The  love  for  others  and  for  the  race  is  as  much  a  part 
of  human  nature  as  the  love  of  self  5  it  is  a  common  in 
stinct  that  man  is  responsible  for  man.  The  heart  has 
its  oracles,  not  less  than  the  reason,  and  this  is  one  of 
them.  No  practicable  system  of  social  equality  has 
been  brought  forward,  or  it  should,  and  it  would  have 
been  adopted;  it  does  not  follow  that  none  can  be 
devised,  for  there  is  no  necessary  opposition  between 
handcraft  and  intelligence ;  and  the  masses  themselves 
will  gain  the  knowledge  of  their  rights,  courage  to 
assert  them,  and  self-respect  to  take  nothing  less.  The 
good  time  is  coming,  when  humanity  will  recognise  all 
members  of  its  family  as  alike  entitled  to  its  care ; 
when  the  heartless  jargon  of  over-production  in  the 
midst  of  want  will  end  .in  a  better  science  of  distri 
bution;  when  man  will  dwell  with  man  as  with  his 
brother ;  when  political  institutions  will  rest  on  the 
basis  of  equality  and  freedom. 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  515 

But  this  result  must  flow  from  internal  activity, 
developed  by  universal  culture ;  it  cannot  be  created  by 
the  force  of  exterior  philanthropy ;  and  still  less  by  the 
reckless  violence  of  men  whose  desperate  audacity 
would  employ  terror  as  a  means  to  ride  on  the  whirl 
wind  of  civil  war.  Where  a  permanent  reform  appears 
to  have  been  instantaneously  effected,  it  will  be  found 
that  the  happy  result  was  but  the  sudden  plucking  of 
fruit  which  had  slowly  ripened.  Successful  revolutions 
proceed  like  all  other  formative  processes  from  inward 
germs.  The  institutions  of  a  people  are  always  the 
reflection  of  its  heart  and  its  intelligence ;  and  in  pro 
portion  as  these  are  purified  and  enlightened,  must  its 
public  life  manifest  the  dominion  of  universal  reason. 

The  subtle  and  irresistible  movement  of  mind, 
silently  but  thoroughly  correcting  opinion  and  chang 
ing  society,  brings  liberty  both  to  the  soul  and  to  the 
world.  All  the  despotisms  on  earth  cannot  stay  its 
coming.  Every  fallacy  that  man  discards  is  an  eman 
cipation  ;  every  superstition  that  is  thrown  by,  is  a  re 
deeming  from  captivity.  The  tendency  towards  uni 
versality  implies  necessarily  a  tendency  towards  free 
dom,  alike  of  thought  and  in  action.  The  faith  of  the 
earliest  ages  was  of  all  others  the  grossest.  Every 
century  of  the  Christian  Church  is  less  corrupt  and  less 
in  bondage  than  its  predecessor.  The  sum  of  spiritual 
knowledge  as  well  as  of  liberty  is  greater,  and  less 
mixed  with  error  now,  than  ever  before.  The  future 


516  OCCASIONAL    ADDEESSES. 

sliall  surpass  the  present.  The  senseless  strife  between 
rationalism  and  supernaturalism  will  come  to  an  end ; 
an  age  of  skepticism  will  not  again  be  called  an  age  of 
reason ;  and  reason  and  religion  will  be  found  in 
accord. 

In  the  sphere  of  politics  the  Republican  Govern 
ment  has  long  been  the  aspiration  of  the  wise.  "  The 
human  race,"  said  DANTE,  summing  up  the  experience 
of  the  Middle  Age,  "  is  in  the  best  condition,  when  it 
has  the  greatest  degree  of  liberty;  "  and  KANT,  in  like 
manner,  giving  utterance  to  the  last  word  of  Protes 
tantism,  declared  the  republican  government  to  be  "  the 
only  true  civil  constitution."  Its  permanent  establish 
ment  presupposes  meliorating  experience  and  appro 
priate  culture ;  but  the  circumstances  under  which  it 
becomes  possible,  prevail  more  and  more.  Our  coun 
try  is  bound  to  allure  the  world  to  freedom  by  the 
beauty  of  its  example. 

The  course  of  civilization  flows  on  like  a  mightv 

o      </ 

river  through  a  boundless  valley,  calling  to  the  streams 
from  every  side  to  swell  its  current,  which  is  always, 
growing  wider,  and  deeper,  and  clearer,  as  it  rolls 
along.  Let  us  trust  ourselves  upon  its  bosom  without 
fear ;  nay,  rather  with  confidence  and  joy.  Since  the 
progress  of  the  race  appears  to  be  the  great  purpose 
of  Providence,  it  becomes  us  all  to  venerate  the  future. 
We  must  be  ready  to  sacrifice  ourselves  for  our  suc 
cessors,  as  they  in  their  turn  must  live  for  their  posterity. 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    MANKIND.  517 

We  are  not  to  be  disheartened,  that  the  intimate  con 
nection  of  humanity  renders  it  impossible  for  any  one 
portion  of  the  civilised  world  to  be  much  in  advance  of 
all  the  rest ;  nor  are  we  to  grieve  because  an  unalter 
able  condition  of  perfection  can  never  be  attained. 
Every  thing  is  in  movement,  and  for  the  better,  except 
only  the  fixed  eternal  law  by  which  the  necessity  of 
change  is  established ;  or  rather  except  only  God,  who 
includes  in  himself  all  being,  all  truth,  and  all  love. 
The  subject  of  man's  thoughts  remains  the  same,  but 
the  sum  of  his  acquisitions  ever  grows  with  time ;  so 
that  his  last  system  of  philosophy  is  the  best,  for  it  in 
cludes  every  one  that  went  before.  The  last  political 
state  of  the  world,  likewise,  is  ever  more  excellent  than 
the  old,  for  it  presents  in  activity  the  entire  inheritance 
of  truth,  fructified  by  the  living  mind  of  a  more  en 
lightened  generation. 

You,  BROTHERS,  who  are  joined  together  for  the 
study  of  history,  receive  the  lighted  torch  of  civilisation 
from  the  departing  half-century,  and  hand  it  along  to 
the  next.  In  fulfilling  this  glorious  office,  remember 
that  the  principles  of  justice  and  sound  philosophy  are 
but  the  inspirations  of  common  sense,  and  belong  of 
right  to  all  mankind.  Carry  them  forth,  therefore,  to 
the  whole  people ;  for  so  only  can  society  build  itself  up 
on  the  imperishable  groundwork  of  universal  freedom. 

THE    END. 


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